Suspect, 28, kills 3 children, 3 adults in Nashville school shooting: police

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - A 28-year-old Nashville resident has been identified as the shooter who killed three children and three adults at a private school Monday morning, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.

Police said Audrey Hale entered Covenant Presbyterian School through a side entrance with two assault-style rifles and a handgun. Officers arrived and entered the school at 33 Burton Hills Blvd. through the first floor and heard shots coming from the second floor.

Video could be disturbing to watch.

Police said Hale arrived on campus in a Honda Fit. Hale was heavily armed with three guns, two of them assault-type weapons, and, as seen in surveillance video, shot the way into the church/school through doors on the side of the building.

The first call to 911 about shots fired in the building came in at 10:13 a.m. Officers rushed to the campus and began clearing the building. Shots were heard from the second level. It was on the second floor, in a common area, that a team of officers encountered Hale shooting. Hale had been firing through a window at arriving police cars. Two members of an officer team shot and killed Hale at 10:27 a.m. Those two officers are Officer Rex Englebert, a four-year Metro Police veteran, and Officer Michael Collazo, a nine-year Metro Police veteran.

Police said one officer sustained an injury from broken glass. MNPD Chief John Drake added that the shooter is a former student and left behind a manifesto and maps, leading investigators to believe the shooting was targeted.

Metro Police identified the victims as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all 9, Katherine Koonce, 60, Cynthia Peak, 61, and 61-year-old Mike Hill.

Koonce was Head of School at the Covenant School. She had been at the school nearly seven years. Hill was a custodian at the school and Peak was a substitute teacher.

“In a tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, long list of communities to experience a school shooting,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper wrote in a tweet Monday afternoon. “My heart goes out to the families of the victims. Our entire city stands with you. As facts continue to emerge, I thank our first responders and medical professionals.”

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