Florida Personal Injury Blog
Mass Shooting in Nashville School.
According to police, a former student carried out a shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville on Monday, resulting in the deaths of three adults and three children. The shooter had carefully planned the attack by creating a detailed map and conducting surveillance of the building. This tragedy is the most recent in a string of mass shootings in the United States that have left the country uneasy about violence in schools. Among the victims were the school’s top administrator, a substitute teacher, a custodian, and three 9-year-old children. In the aftermath of the shooting, parents rushed to the school to check on the safety of their children, and the community planned vigils to honor the victims. News Source 7 News.
According to police, two officers responded to the shooting at the school and fatally shot the shooter. However, there was confusion regarding the shooter’s gender as police first identified the individual as a 28-year-old woman named Audrey Hale. Later, at a press conference in the afternoon, the police chief revealed that the shooter was transgender but did not disclose how they currently identified. When asked about the motive behind the attack, Drake did not provide a specific answer but shared disturbing details about the shooter’s meticulous planning.
Police reported that the shooter shattered the glass doors of the building to gain entry. The shooter was armed with two “assault-style” weapons and a handgun, with at least two of them believed to have been obtained legally in the Nashville area. A search of the shooter’s home uncovered a sawed-off shotgun, another shotgun, and other unspecified evidence. The victims of the shooting included three 9-year-old children, Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, as well as adults Cynthia Peak, Katherine Koonce, and Mike Hill. Katherine Koonce was listed as the head of The Covenant School on its website and had been leading the school since 2016, according to her LinkedIn profile. Cynthia Peak was a substitute teacher, and Mike Hill was a custodian. Following the shooting, students held hands and were escorted to nearby buses, which took them to a church where they were reunited with their parents.
The school in Nashville has around 200 students ranging from preschool to sixth grade, with approximately 50 staff members. Prior to the tragic event on Monday, there had been seven instances since 2006 where four or more people were killed in a 24-hour period at K-12 schools, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University. All the perpetrators in these incidents were male. However, this database doesn’t include school shootings where fewer than four people were killed, which have unfortunately become more frequent in recent years. Just last week, there were two school shootings, one in Denver and another in the Dallas area.
The shooting at The Covenant School lasted approximately 14 minutes, beginning at 10:13 a.m. and ending when two officers from a five-member team shot and killed the suspect at 10:27 a.m. The shooter had fired at arriving officers from a second-story window and was armed with significant ammunition.
Late Monday night, the police released edited surveillance footage that showed the shooter’s car driving up to the school, firing at glass doors, walking through the corridors holding a gun, and entering a room labeled “church office” before leaving. The footage did not show any interaction with other people and had no sound.
According to police spokesperson Don Aaron, there were no police officers present or assigned to the school at the time of the shooting because it is a church-run school. Jozen Reodica, who was nearby, heard the police sirens and recorded the chaos on her phone as her building was placed under lockdown.
Our thoughts and best wishes go out to the families of the deceased victims following this tragic school shooting incident in Nashville, Tennessee.
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