By JONATHAN MATTISE (Associated Press)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The shooter who killed three college students and three employees members at a Christian college in Nashville legally purchased seven weapons lately and hid the weapons from their mother and father earlier than finishing up the assault by firing indiscriminately at victims and spraying gunfire by way of doorways and home windows, police stated Tuesday.
The violence Monday at The Covenant School was the most recent college taking pictures to roil the nation and was deliberate rigorously. The shooter had drawn an in depth map of the college, together with potential entry factors, and carried out surveillance of the constructing earlier than finishing up the bloodbath, authorities stated.
The suspect, Audrey Hale, 28, was a former pupil on the college. Hale didn’t goal particular victims — amongst them three 9-year-olds and the top of the college — however did goal “this school, this church building,” police spokesperson Don Aaron stated at a information convention Tuesday.
Hale was below a physician’s look after an undisclosed emotional dysfunction and was not recognized to police earlier than the assault, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake stated on the information convention.
If police had been advised that Hale was suicidal or homicidal, “then we would have tried to get those weapons,” Drake stated. “But as it stands, we had absolutely no idea who this person was or if (Hale) even existed.”
Tennessee doesn’t at the moment have a “red flag” regulation, which lets police step in and take firearms away from individuals who threaten to kill.
Hale legally purchased seven firearms from 5 native gun shops, Drake stated. Three of them have been utilized in Monday’s taking pictures.
Hale’s mother and father believed their little one had bought one gun and didn’t personal any others, Drake stated, including that Hale “had been hiding several weapons within the house.”
Hale’s motive is unknown, Drake stated. In an interview with NBC News on Monday, Drake stated investigators don’t know what drove Hale however consider the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”
Drake, at Tuesday’s information convention, described “several different writings by Hale” that point out different places and The Covenant School.
Asked at a Senate listening to whether or not the Justice Department would open an investigation into whether or not the taking pictures was a hate crime focusing on Christians, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland stated federal officers have been working with native police to establish a motive.
Police have launched movies of the taking pictures, together with edited surveillance footage that reveals the shooter’s automotive driving as much as the college, glass doorways being shot out and the shooter ducking by way of one in every of them.
Additional video, from Officer Rex Engelbert’s bodycam, reveals a girl assembly police exterior as they arrive and telling them that every one the kids have been locked down, “but we have two kids that we don’t know where they are.”
The girl then directs officers to Fellowship Hall and says folks inside had simply heard gunshots. Three officers, together with Engelbert, search rooms one after the other, holding rifles and asserting themselves as police.
The video reveals officers climbing stairs to the second flooring and getting into a foyer space, adopted by a barrage of gunfire and an officer yelling twice: “Get your hands away from the gun.” Then the shooter is proven immobile on the ground.
Police recognized Engelbert, a four-year member of the pressure, and Michael Collazo, a nine-year member, because the officers who fatally shot Hale.
Aaron stated there have been no police current or assigned to the college on the time of the taking pictures as a result of it’s a church-run college.
Police response occasions to highschool shootings have come below higher scrutiny after the assault in Uvalde, Texas, by which 70 minutes handed earlier than regulation enforcement stormed the classroom. In Nashville, police have stated 14 minutes handed from the preliminary name to when the suspect was killed, however they haven’t stated how lengthy it took them to reach.
Surveillance video reveals a time stamp of simply earlier than 10:11 a.m., when the attacker shot out the doorways. Police stated they acquired the decision a few shooter at 10:13 a.m. The edited bodycam footage didn’t embrace time stamps. A police spokesperson didn’t reply to an e-mail Tuesday asking after they arrived.
During the information convention, Drake didn’t reply a query straight about what number of minutes it took police to reach. At about 10:24 a.m., 11 minutes after the decision was obtained, officers engaged the suspect, he stated.
“There were police cars that had been hit by gunfire. As officers were approaching the building, there was gunfire going off,” Drake stated.
“We feel, our response right now, from what I’ve seen, I don’t have a particular problem with it. But we always want to get better. We always want to get there in two or three minutes,” he stated, including that visitors was “locked down” on the time.
Traffic was certainly stopped alongside a close-by two-lane street with a turning lane as police tried to weave their method to the college.
Police have given unclear info on Hale’s gender. For hours Monday, police recognized the shooter as a girl. Later within the day, the police chief stated Hale was transgender. After the information convention, Aaron declined to elaborate on how Hale recognized.
In an e-mail Tuesday, police spokesperson Kristin Mumford stated Hale “was assigned female at birth. Hale did use male pronouns on a social media profile.” Later Tuesday, on the information convention, Drake referred to Hale with feminine pronouns.
Authorities recognized the useless kids as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. The adults have been Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61.
The web site of The Covenant School, a Presbyterian college based in 2001, lists a Katherine Koonce as the top of the college. Her LinkedIn profile says she has led the college since July 2016. Peak was a substitute trainer, and Hill was a custodian, in response to investigators.
Koonce was remembered as somebody who would run towards hazard, not away from it.
“I guarantee you if there were kids missing (during the shooting), Katherine was looking for them,” buddy Jackie Bailey stated. “And that’s probably how she got in the way — just trying to do something for somebody else. She would give up her own life in order to save somebody else’s.”
Founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, the college is within the prosperous Green Hills neighborhood simply south of downtown Nashville. It has about 200 college students from preschool by way of sixth grade and roughly 50 employees members.
President Joe Biden stated he had spoken to the police chief, mayor and senators in Tennessee. He pleaded with Congress to go stronger gun security legal guidelines, together with a ban on “assault weapons.”
“The Congress has to act,” Biden stated. “The majority of the American people think having assault weapons is bizarre, it’s a crazy idea. They’re against that.”
Before Monday’s violence in Nashville, there had been seven mass killings at Okay-12 colleges since 2006 by which 4 or extra folks have been killed inside a 24-hour interval, in response to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. In all of them, the shooters have been males.
The database doesn’t embrace college shootings by which fewer than 4 folks have been killed, which have turn out to be much more widespread lately. Just final week alone, for instance, college shootings occurred in Denver and the Dallas space inside two days of one another.
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Contributing to this report have been Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia, John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, and Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”