The Nashville Elementary School Shooting and the Loss of a Student: An Active Shooter at a High School, According to the Nashville Police Department
The former police officer who oversaw active shooter training at the school said that quick-thinking teachers who locked down classrooms helped save lives.
Body-camera footage of the first responding officers shows them rushing in and clear classrooms before racing to the second floor where an officer armed with a rifle shot and killed the attacker. The shooter was dead at 10:27 a.m., police said.
“Their ability to execute literally flawlessly under that amount of stress while somebody trying to murder them and their children, that is what made the difference here,” Fidler said.
Six people were killed in the Monday morning school shooting. They were three kids who used to attend school: Evelyn Dieckhaus, William and Hallie. Cynthia Peak was a substitute teacher at the school, as were the head of the school and the custodian.
All of the victims who were struck by gunfire had been in an open area or hallway, said Fidler, who did a walk-through of the school with officials Wednesday.
The only people that the shooter was able to get to were victims stuck in a hallway or an open area. “Several were able to evacuate safely. The ones that were not trained to do that did exactly what was taught to them.
Drake told CNN that officers went in harm’s way to stop the incident, and that they could have talked about more tragedy.
The law enforcement response in Nashville stands in contrast with the response in Uvalde, Texas, where there was a delay of more than an hour before authorities confronted and killed the gunman. 21 people died in an attack in Uvalde.
The Monday’s school shooting in Nashville was the worst in the US since the Uvalde massacre. It also marked the 19th shooting at a school or university in just the past three months that left at least one person wounded, a CNN count shows.
A Nashville city councilman also said a witness told him Koonce, the head of The Covenant School, spent her last moments trying to protect the children in her care.
The witness said that the woman on the call, who was identified as Koonce, heard the shots and then left the office. The councilman said the assumption was that she headed towards the shooter. He didn’t say who the witness was.
Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake can’t confirm the death of Koonce, but he does know she was alone in the hallway. There was a confrontation, I’m sure. You can tell the way she is lying in the hallway.”
In Nashville, resident Eleanor Hughes said, it was a tragedy that felt so deeply by everyone. “Nashville is a close tight-knit community. We feel the pain. It is a terrible situation.
But as details of the pre-planning are uncovered, it’s still unclear what motivated the attack. Drake said police have met with the school and found no indication that Hale had any problems while attending The Covenant.
Police, FBI and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation have been combing through maps and writings that Hale had left, including a notebook.
Authorities have called the attack “calculated,” with Drake saying Wednesday that the maps “did have a display of entry into the school, a route that would be taken for whatever was going to be carried out.”
The shooter was heavily armed and prepared for a confrontation with law enforcement after arriving at the school, according to police.
Hale had seven guns in the past three years, but they were kept hidden from his parents as he was under care for an emotional disorder. Three weapons, including an assault rifle, were used in the attack.
When did a male shooter call the Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn., seven years after the shooting of Hale, an ex-girlfriend
Tennessee does not have a red flag law that would allow a judge to temporarily seize guns from someone they think is a threat to themselves.
Hale’s childhood friend, Averianna Patton, told CNN on Tuesday the killer sent her disturbing messages minutes before the attack, saying “I’m planning to die today” and it would be on the news.
She phoned the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office in Nashville but was on hold for 7 minutes. By then, the shooting had already started.
Drake told CNN that the call came after the officer had arrived at the scene if the messages were accurate. So, it plays no bearing on that.”
Hale was named a “female shooter” by police and later said she was trans. Hale used male pronouns on her social media profile, but she did not clarify when she said it.
The police chief spoke about the school shooting that the officers faced at The Covenant School on Monday and how the officers were trained to never do that.
Violence has affected our city, bringing pain and heartache. The Reverend Harold M. Love, Jr. said he hoped for hope during the prayer portion of the event.
The first day in Nashville when a pediatric surgeon saw a gunshot: I was shocked to see an ambulance going through the emergency department, and I was afraid to see a child like that
The workday had started on Monday at the Monroe Carell Jr. children’s hospital, where he works as a neonatologist.
Soon after 10 a.m., after his routine morning rounds, the pediatric surgeon was on his way to the operating room when a page alerted him: An ambulance was en route to the Nashville hospital carrying a gravely wounded gunshot victim.
In total, five of the victims of Monday’s school shooting were transported to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and its affiliated children’s hospital, hospital officials say.
“You’re in a bit of shock when you get something like that,” Fusco said, recalling his reaction to seeing the pages. This should not happen to children.
“You’re so geared up. We’re so well-prepared to help. We’ve had nurses drive in from home to the emergency department. “Everyone is present,” he said. Instead of this, they were left with the feeling of sheer helplessness as patients with unsurvivable injuries come in.
“Injuries to children’s bodies that are present are essentially unsurvivable, because of their age,” he said.
Most firearm deaths and injuries are caused by handguns, whose bullets typically pierce straight through targets. Military-style rifles have even more power than they do and their bullets are able to destroy bones and vital organs.
Gunshot wounds are a fact of life for trauma surgeons in major U.S. cities, even for pediatric surgeons like Fusco — firearms are the leading cause of death for children in the U.S., killing thousands each year.
Fusco, who has more than 10 years’ experience as a surgeon, had never seen a child like that before.
He had been training for so long that it went against him. “Throughout residency, fellowship, you see thousands and thousands of patients. You’re taught to help and do everything you can to help them.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/31/1167375561/nashville-school-shooting-vanderbilt-hospital
The Nashville School Shooting Vanderbilt Hospital’s Mass Casualty Response Plan Changed After a Las Vegas Shooting Injured
The mass casualty response plan at VUMC was changed after a man opened fire at a music festival in Las Vegas, killing 60 and injuring hundreds.
The hospital is located in central Nashville, a city famous for its own vibrant music culture. Jahangir, who led the changes to the plan, said that they were not immune to this.
Jahangir said that the plan has been put in action a few times each year. Sometimes the mass casualty event is a tornado. Other times it’s a bad accident on the interstate. Occasionally, it’s a mass shooting — though school shootings are rare.
“I think many of us, especially those with young children, always dread this kind of alert because it’s different from what we’ve experienced before,” he said.
On Monday, the alert had ended by the early afternoon, once it was clear that no more victims would be arriving, meaning the staff and facilities on standby — the surgeons, the nurses, the blood bank, the operating rooms — would no longer be needed.
The doctors and nurses gathered in a conference room to process the morning’s events. Some people were sitting quietly. Others cried. It’s difficult to be in a room with people who are extremely upset. The silence is deafening.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/31/1167375561/nashville-school-shooting-vanderbilt-hospital
The Bethe Ansatz Project: Plans for a Funeral for Evelyn Dieckhaus, the Lead Shooting Victim of the Second-Law Elementary Shooting
Plans for their funerals have been set as the city mourns the victims of the shooting. The first, for third-grader Evelyn Dieckhaus, will take place Friday afternoon; she will be laid to rest Saturday in a private family burial. Others will continue over the weekend and into next week.