Police release video showing Nashville shooter breaking into the school
Police released surveillance video late Monday night, hours after a former student who shot through the doors of a Christian elementary school in Nashville and killed three children and three adults. The shooter was fatally shot by police at The Covenant School in the city's Green Hills neighborhood, authorities said.
Police released approximately two minutes of edited video showing the shooter's car driving up to the school from multiple angles, including one in which children can be seen playing on swings in the background. Next an interior view shows glass doors to the school being shot out and the shooter ducking through one of the shattered doors.
More footage from inside shows the shooter roaming through a school corridor holding a gun with a long barrel and walking into a room labeled "church office," then coming back out.
In the final part of the footage, the shooter can be seen walking down another long corridor with the gun drawn. The shooter is not seen interacting with anyone on the video, which has no sound.
Authorities have identified the victims as 9-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce, and 61-year-old Mike Hill. All three adults worked at the school.
Police identified the shooter as Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old from Nashville, who officials said was armed with at least two assault weapons and a handgun. CBS News is attempting to confirm Hale's gender identity.
Nashville Police Chief John Drake said the preliminary investigation indicated the shooting was targeted.
"We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we're going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident," he told reporters. "We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place."
Police also released an image of the car the shooter allegedly drove to the school.
Active shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, drove this Honda Fit to the Covenant Church/school campus this morning and parked. MNPD detectives searched it and found additional material written by Hale. pic.twitter.com/ftGX74ecKr
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) March 28, 2023
Rachel Dibble, who was at a nearby church where children were taken to be reunited with their parents, described the scene as everyone being in "complete shock."
"People were involuntarily trembling," she said. "The children … started their morning in their cute little uniforms, they probably had some Froot Loops and now their whole lives changed today."
Avery Myrick said her mother, a pre-kindergarten teacher at Covenant, hid as shots rang out through the school.
"She said she was hiding in the closet, and that there was shooting all over and that they had potentially tried to get into her room, and just that she loved us," Myrick told WSMV.
On Monday night, as the country digested another mass shooting that claimed the lives of children, people left flowers and stuffed toys at a growing makeshift memorial outside the school. Some kneeled in prayer.
Stacie Wilford, a nurse, said it was "so scary" to have a shooting so close to home. She lives nearby and has an eight-year-old who attends a school only two miles down the road from Covenant.
"Whenever you hear about school shootings in other states, yes, you feel it, but when it's at your back door, it just sets in differently," Wilford told AFP.
Chad Baker, 44, said he felt "horrified and very sad," and added that while he supports gun rights, there should be more regulation.
"There's just not enough to protect children," he told AFP.
"I carry a gun with me most days, but I don't need an assault rifle," he added. "And I don't think it should be as easy to buy flowers as it is a gun."
AFP contributed to this report.