Nashville School Shooting Was Apparently A Targeted Attack, Police Say

A shooter opened fire at a private Christian grade school in Nashville Monday, killing three children and three adults, officials said. The shooter was fatally shot by police at The Covenant School in the city's affluent Green Hills neighborhood, authorities said.

Nashville Police Chief John Drake said the preliminary investigation indicated the shooting was targeted.

"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 probe suggested that the shooter was a student at the school, though Drake didn't know when.

He told NBS News detectives believe the shooter had "some resentment for having to go to that school."

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Authorities identified the victims as 9-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce, and 61-year-old Mike Hill. All the adults worked at the school.

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Police identified the shooter as Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old from Nashville, who officials said was armed with at least two assault weapons and a handgun. CBS News is attempting to confirm Hale's gender identity.

Police released surveillance video Monday night showing the shooter firing through glass panes on doors and entering the building, then roaming hallways and going in and out of rooms with a weapon at the hip.

Drake described the guns used to carry out the shooting as two "AR-style weapons" — a rifle and a pistol — in addition to another handgun. Authorities believe two of the weapons may have been obtained legally and locally, according to the police chief.

"I was literally moved to tears to see this and the kids as they were being ushered out of the building," Drake said.

Officials established a reunification center nearby where students inside the school were transported in the shooting's aftermath.

"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 observed.

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. The officers moved upstairs and, according to a statement released late Monday night, saw the shooter firing at arriving police cars. 

At that point, they "engaged" the shooter, who was fatally shot by two of the five responding police officers at the scene, Aaron said. Police later identified those officers as Rex Englebert, who had been with the department for four years, and Michael Collazo, a nine-year veteran of the MNPD.

The shooter entered Covenant School through a side door and traversed the building, moving from the first floor to the second and "firing multiple shots,"

Covenant is a private Christian school in Nashville for preschool through 6th grade, CBS affiliate WTVF reported. Last year, the school held an active shooter training program, the station said.

Special agents at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation were also involved in the response.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said he was "closely monitoring the tragic situation at Covenant."

President Biden addressed the shooting in televised remarks on Monday afternoon. "It's sick," he said. "It's heartbreaking. A family's worst nightmare."

Mr. Biden said the administration is "monitoring the situation really closely" and again called on Congress to pass his assault weapons ban, as he did after the mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, in January.

"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." 

The White House says the president spoke to Lee and Nashville Mayor John Cooper later on Monday and ordered U.S. flags at the White House and other federal properties to be flown at half-staff through Friday in honor of the victims.

First Lady Jill Biden also brought up the shooting in remarks given during the National League of Cities conference, saying she was "truly without words."

"Our children deserve better," Jill Biden continued. "We stand, all of us, we stand with Nashville in prayer."