Within 24 hours of a deadly shooting that unfolded at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, police have released surveillance and body camera footage showing not only how the horrifying scene began, but how it ended minutes later.
The tragedy started at around 10:13 a.m. Monday and ended 14 minutes later when the shooter was gunned down by responding police officers inside The Covenant School.
Six victims were killed, including three 9-year-old children, the school’s top administrator, a substitute teacher and a custodian.
The three children were identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney. The three adults killed were Cynthia Peak, age 61, Katherine Koonce, age 60, and Mike Hill, age 61.
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The shooter, identified as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, was previously a student of the private Christian school. Investigators are still searching for a motive for the shooting.
The dramatic footage released Monday and Tuesday offers an alarming look at how the attacker managed to enter the school, but also how police navigated the situation.
Warning: The video and images below are graphic and could be traumatizing and harmful to watch and view.
The shooting began just after 10 a.m.
Late Monday night, police released approximately two minutes of edited surveillance 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.
Police received the initial call about an active shooter at 10:13 a.m.
More footage from inside shows the shooter walking 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 else on the video, which has no sound.
Police arrive at the scene
New video from Officer Rex Engelbert's body cam shows a woman greeting police outside as they arrive at The Covenant School on Monday. “The kids are all locked down, but we have two kids that we don't know where they are,” she tells police.
“OK, yes, ma'am,” Engelbert replies.
The woman then directs officers to Fellowship Hall and says people inside had just heard gunshots. “Upstairs are a bunch of kids,” she says.
Three officers, including Engelbert, search rooms one by one, holding rifles. “Metro Police,” officers yell.
“Let's go, let's go,” one officer yells.
As alarms are heard going off in the school, one officer says, “It sounds like it's upstairs.”
Officers climb stairs to the second floor and enter a lobby area. “Move in,” an officer yells. Then a barrage of gunfire is heard.
The shooter is killed by police
Two officers from a five-member team opened fire in response, killing the suspect at 10:27 a.m., Aaron said.
“Get your hands away from the gun," an officer yells twice. Then the shooter is shown motionless on the floor.
Police identified Engelbert, a four-year member of the force, and Michael Collazo, a nine-year member, as the officers who fatally shot the attacker.
There were no police officers present or assigned to the school at the time of the shooting because it is a church-run school.
"I want to say thank you to our first responders who got there and immediately went in and addressed the threat of someone who had multiple rounds of ammunition, prepared for confrontation with law enforcement," Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said. "And we were able to stop the threat and unfortunately six victims. So my thoughts and prayers again but my praise goes to the men and women as I've said before, we will not wait. I was hoping this day would never ever come here in this city, but we would never wait to go in and make entry... especially when it deals with our children."
Authorities said Hale was armed with two “assault-style” weapons as well as a handgun. At least two of them were believed to have been obtained legally in the Nashville area, according to the chief. Police said a search of Hale’s home turned up a sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun and other unspecified evidence.
Hale was a former student of the school, according to the Nashville police chief.
Drake did not say exactly what drove the shooter to open fire Monday morning but said in an interview with NBC News that investigators believe the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”
He provided chilling examples of the shooter’s elaborate planning for the targeted attack, the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country that has grown increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.
“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.”
The attack at The Covenant School — which has about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade, as well as roughly 50 staff members — comes as communities around the nation are reeling from a spate of school violence, including the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last year; a first grader who shot his teacher in Virginia; and a shooting last week in Denver that wounded two administrators.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
