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Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence.
As a heartbroken Nashville community grapples with the mass shooting that claimed the lives of three 9-year-old children and three adults at a private Christian school, police are uncovering more details about the 28-year-old shooter.
The attack unfolded over 14 minutes Monday morning at The Covenant School, with the heavily armed shooter firing into the elementary school to gain access and killing six people before being fatally shot by responding police officers.
The parents of the shooter, identified as Audrey Hale, told police they knew Hale had bought and sold one weapon and believed that was the extent of it, Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Tuesday.
But Hale, who was under care for an emotional disorder, had legally bought seven firearms that were hidden at home, Drake said. Three of those weapons, including an AR-style rifle, were used in the attack Monday.
Police have said the attack was pre-planned, finding that Hale had detailed maps of the school as well as writings related to the shooting and had scouted a second possible attack location in Nashville. Hale’s childhood friend also revealed the shooter sent her disturbing messages just before the attack.
The attack marked the 19th shooting at a school or university so far in 2023 that left at least one person wounded, a CNN count shows. It was also the deadliest US school shooting in nearly a year, since the May attack in Uvalde, Texas, left 21 dead.
As terrified schoolchildren and teachers were led to safety out of The Covenant School Monday, word spread of those who were lost: three young children, the head of their school, its custodian and a substitute teacher.
“All of Tennessee was hurt yesterday, but some parents woke up without children, children woke up without parents and without teachers, and spouses woke up without their loved ones,” said Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, who also lost a close family friend in the shooting.
A ‘calculated’ attack and disturbing messages
The shooter sent a disturbing Instagram message to a childhood friend just before 10 a.m. Monday, saying “I’m planning to die today” and that it would be on the news, the friend Averianna Patton told CNN on Tuesday.
Patton, a Nashville radio host, told CNN she was the shooter’s childhood basketball teammate but they hadn’t spoken in years and is unsure why she received the message. Patton said she then called a suicide prevention line and the Nashville Davidson County Sheriff’s Office at around 10:13 a.m.
That’s the same time police in Nashville say they got a 911 call of an active shooter inside The Covenant School.
Writings left behind by Hale revealed the attack “was calculated and planned,” police said.
