Sandy MaloneNashville, TN – Nashville police have released security video from inside the Covenant Presbyterian Church that shows the armed former student shooting her way into the school and stalking the hallways looking for victims (video below).
Surveillance video from the parking lot showed the would-be school shooter arrived at The Covenant School on Burton Hills Boulevard at about 10 a.m. on March 27 and drove her Honda Fit into the parking lot, NBC News reported.
Then cameras inside the building captured the shooter blasting out the glass on two locked doors as she made her way into the church and school building about 10 minutes later.
Video showed that the shooter, a transgender woman whom police said attended The Covenant School as a child, was wearing a tactical vest, camouflage pants, and a red baseball cap.
She was carrying one rifle and had a second long gun slung over her shoulder in the video.
Police said she was also in possession of a handgun, NBC News reported.
The video showed the shooter walking through hallways of the church and school sections of the building with her rifle pointed as if looking for victims.
There is no audio but fire alarm lights appeared to be flashing in the hallways.
Police received the first 911 calls about the active shooter at 10:13 a.m., NBC News reported.
Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) spokesman Don Aaron told reporters “the police department response was swift” and said “the shooter was deceased” by 10:27 a.m.
Three children and three adults had been shot before police arrived on the scene, WSMV reported.
Police said the shooter was armed with two “assault-style rifles and a handgun” on the second floor of the grade school when officers arrived, NBC News reported.
She was confronted by five officers.
Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said two of the officers opened fire and fatally shot the active shooter, NBC News reported.
The heroes have since been identified as MNPD Officers Rex Englebert and Michael Collazo.
HEROES! Nashville Police Officers Rex Englebert and Michael Collazo immediately stopped the monster who murdered three children and three adults in cold blood yesterday at the Covenant School.
Thankful to all the heroes who responded! pic.twitter.com/Pnnp6MWL3j
— National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) (@GLFOP) March 28, 2023
The wounded children and adults were rushed to Vanderbilt University Medical Center where they were pronounced dead upon arrival.
Officials have identified the murdered children as nine-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, WSVN reported.
Scruggs was the daughter of the pastor of the church where the massacre occurred.
The murdered adults have been identified as 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce, and 61-year-old Mike Hill.
Koonce was Head of School, Peak was a substitute teacher, and Hill was a custodian, NBC News reported.
It’s not known if the shooter had a connection to any of the students or school employees.
“At one point she was a student at that school,” Chief Drake told reporters at a briefing hours after the shooting. “But unsure what year… but that’s what I’ve been told so far.”
The Covenant School’s student body includes children from preschool through 6th Grade, according to the school’s website.
It has about 33 teachers and as many as 210 children in the student body, according to The New York Times.
The police chief said investigators were combing through the dead shooter’s home searching for clues about what led up to the killing spree at her former grade school, NBC News reported.
Chief Drake said investigators had found “a manifesto” in the suspect’s home.
Nashville police said they planned to release bodycam video of the officers’ encounter with the school shooter soon.
Watch the incident unfold in the video below:
BREAKING: Footage released of Nashville transgender mass shooter pic.twitter.com/9d1fQcIWRL
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) March 28, 2023
Holly Matkin
