According to officials, three children and three adults were killed when a shooter opened fire at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville on Monday.
Police shot and killed the shooter at The Covenant School in the upscale Green Hills section of the city, according to authorities.
According to Nashville Police Chief John Drake, the first investigation showed that the shooting was intentional.
Authorities said on Tuesday that the ongoing research has not demonstrated that any one of the victims was singled out for attention. Leaders have yet to identify a potential motive.
“We have no evidence that individuals were specifically targeted,” said Don Aaron, the director of media relations at the Nashville Police Department. “This school, this church building was a target of the shooter, but we have no information at present to indicate that the shooter was specifically targeting any one of the six individuals who were murdered.”
In subsequent remarks, Drake reiterated that police “feel that these students who were targeted were randomly targeted.”
In an earlier statement, police said that a search of the shooter’s home revealed materials they believed indicated a targeted attack.
“We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident,” Drake told reporters on Monday. “We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place.”
The investigation also appeared to indicate that the shooter had attended the school at some point, though Drake did not know when.
“What detectives have said so far is there’s possibly some resentment for having to go to that school,” he told “CBS Mornings” on Tuesday.
The manifesto included “several different writings about other locations” in addition to the school, according to the police chief, as well as “a drawing of how potentially” the shooter “would enter and the assaults that would take place.”
“There’s quite a bit of writing to it,” Drake said. “I have not read the whole manifesto. Our team and the FBI have been working on this.”
Authorities identified the victims as 9-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, as well as 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce and 61-year-old Mike Hill. All the 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-style weapons and a handgun. Authorities released body camera footage Tuesday of police officers responding to the shooting and taking down the assailant.
Drake on Monday described the guns used to carry out the shooting as two “AR-style weapons” — a rifle and a pistol — in addition to another handgun.
Although the shooter’s parents were aware that he owned one firearm, they believed he had sold it and had no more firearms, according to Drake. According to him, police discovered that the shooter “had been concealing multiple guns within the residence.”
According to the police chief, the shooter “was under doctor’s care for an emotional disorder.”
After entering the building and firing through door glass, the shooter was shown on security footage released by the police Monday night wandering the halls and entering and exiting rooms while carrying a pistol at his hip.
The assailant entered Covenant School through a side door, moved from the first to the second story, and “fired multiple shots.”
Officers entered the first story of the school building and began to clear it when they heard gunfire on the second level, said Don Aaron, a spokesperson for Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. According to a statement released late Monday night, the officers moved upstairs and saw the shooter firing at arriving police cars.
When they “engaged” the shooter at that moment, two of the responding police officers—a total of five—shot and killed him, according to Aaron. Rex Englebert, a four-year department member, and Michael Collazo, a nine-year MNPD veteran, were later named by police as those officers.
John Cooper, the mayor of Nashville, reported that it took the shooter 14 minutes to be neutralized.
“That’s amazing, even for our remarkable group and it saved, I think, many lives,” Cooper told CBS News.
He said the shooter had established a “tactical position” and that police body camera footage showed officers “rushing into gunfire.” He said it was “clearly” a scene that would have been even worse if police had not arrived quickly.
After the shooting, pupils from the school were transferred to a nearby reunion facility by officials.
“When we send our kids to school, or to any place of safety, we expect them to live, learn, have fun and come back from that day’s experience. We don’t anticipate things like this,” Drake said.
According to Drake on Tuesday, police now suspect that the shooter may have had other targets, such as a nearby mall.
“We strongly believe there was going to be some other targets, including maybe family members, and one of the malls here in Nashville,” Drake said. “And that just did not happen.”
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Drake said a search of the shooter’s home turned up two additional weapons, “and I believe some more maps pertaining to maybe some thinking about some other incidents.”
President Biden addressed the shooting in televised remarks on Monday afternoon.
“It’s sick,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking. A family’s worst nightmare.”
After the mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, in January, Mr. Biden once more urged Congress to approve his assault weapons prohibition.
“We have to do more to stop gun violence,” he said. “It’s ripping our communities apart and ripping at the very soul of the nation.”
According to the White House, the president talked with Mayor Cooper and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Monday and instructed all government buildings, including the White House, to fly the American flag at half-staff through Friday in memory of the victims.
In remarks made at the National League of Cities convention, First Lady Jill Biden also touched up the shooting, stating that she was “really without words.”
“Our children deserve better,” Jill Biden continued. “We stand, all of us, we stand with Nashville in prayer.”
According to CBS station WTVF, Covenant is a private Christian school in Nashville that offers preschool through sixth grade. The station said the school did an active shooter drill last year.
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For almost 4 years, Jason Martin has been a freelance writer for newspapers, journals, blogs, books, and online material. He covers the most recent news as well as many other topics.