Nashville shooting: Shooter planned murders for ‘a period of months’
Rachel Schilke
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Investigators have determined that the Nashville school shooter who killed three students and three adult staff members at the Covenant School planned the attack for “a period of months.”
Evidence from collective writings by Audrey Hale, the 28-year-old shooter who identified as transgender, showed that Hale documented a plan for “mass murder” for months, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. Writings were taken from Hale’s home and vehicle, coming from journals Hale kept in the months leading up to the mass school shooting on March 27.
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Officers had discovered a manifesto and detailed maps of the school on the day of the shooting but have not revealed the contents. Investigators said the writings are under “careful review” by both Nashville police and the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit based in Quantico, Virginia.
“The motive for Hale’s actions has not been established and remains under investigation by the Homicide Unit in consultation with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit,” Nashville police said in a release. “It is known that Hale considered the actions of other mass murderers.”
Police Chief John Drake has stated that the shooter appeared to have a “sense of resentment.” However, authorities have not uncovered any evidence to suggest that there were problems between the Covenant School and Hale, who attended the school for third and fourth grade.
The manifesto recovered by officers showed that Hale had considered attacking other schools but that those locations had tighter security and officers to stop the attack, so Hale selected Covenant School. As a private Christian school, the Covenant School does not currently employ school resource officers.
Hale was armed with two AR-style weapons and a handgun. The guns were three of seven firearms Hale had purchased legally. Drake said Hale’s parents only knew of one weapon, and they thought Hale had sold it.
Hale fired 152 rounds — 126 5.56 rifle rounds and 26 9 mm rounds — from the time Hale shot through a locked door into the school until Hale was killed by two of the five responding officers, investigators determined. Officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo fatally shot Hale 14 minutes after the initial 911 call came through.
Engelbert discharged a total of four 5.56 rounds from his rifle, and Collazo discharged four from his 9 mm pistol.
Hale fatally shot six victims: students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9, and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, Head of School Katherine Koonce, 60, and custodian Mike Hill, 61.
The attack on the Covenant School marked 17 school shootings in the United States in 2023 and 376 school shootings since the Columbine High School shooting in April 1999.
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The Covenant School shooting is the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. since the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022. More than 20 people, including 19 students and two teachers, were killed in that attack.
Since the shooting, Democratic lawmakers and left-leaning activists have called for assault-style weapons bans and more gun control reform, while right-leaning politicians and commentators pointed to rising attacks on Christians.