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re: US MASS Shootings: Deadly Mass Shootings in Multiple States-Alabama & Kentucky
How Nashville Police Stopped School Shooting in Four Minutes
Moment Police Shoot Female Who Killed 5 in Nashville Primary School
America's latest mass shooting was put to a stop by police officers minutes after they arrived at Nashville's Covenant School.
131 Mass SHOOTINGS This Year
BBC 29 MAR 2023
Still from body cam footage
An unidentified woman can be heard telling officers that two children are missing,
The shooting began at 10:10 AM (16:10 BST) on Monday when 28-year-old Audrey Hale arrived at the school and approached a side entrance.
CCTV footage from inside the school depicts what happens next: glass doors shatter in a flurry of gunshots, allowing the heavily armed attacker to enter.
Over the next 11 minutes or so, three children and three staff members would be fatally shot. The attack would end with police officers shooting Hale dead, four minutes after arriving at the school.
Here's what we know about how the tragedy unfolded.
The Attack Begins
According to Hale's parents, the attacker left home on Monday morning carrying a red bag, which authorities now believe contained the weapons used in the shooting. Hale dismissed her mother when she asked about the contents of the bag.
It is unclear what time this took place or how much time passed until Hale arrived at Covenant School. CCTV footage shows her arriving to the school's parking lot in her car at about 09:54 AM.
CCTV footage shows the shooter arriving at the school in her car before the shooting.
Custodian Michael Hill, 61, was shot through the glass during the opening salvo of gunfire at 10:10 AM. Police received the first 911 call about the shooting three minutes later at 10:13 AM.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said the head of the school, Katherine Koonce, was found in a hallway where a "confrontation" had taken place with the suspect.
It is not clear where the other victims were found, although police believe none of the victims were targeted individually.
Shots fFred at Police
When the officers arrived, the suspect fired at them from an upstairs window, damaging at least one police car.
Nashville Police Chief John Drake said investigators believed that the suspect had some training to be able to fire from an elevated position, positioned slightly back from the window in order to not be "an easy target".
The rest of what we know about the shootings comes from six minutes of bodycam footage from officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo.
The footage shows Mr Engelbert at the school and quickly arming himself with a rifle from the boot of his vehicle. It is unclear what exact time this took place, as the bodycam has no time stamp.
---Beloved school head among Nashville shooting victims
As he exits his vehicle, an unidentified woman tells him that "the kids are all locked down" but that two children are unaccounted for. Soon after, the woman, who appears to be in communication with staff members inside, notes that "a bunch of kids" are upstairs.
Just over a minute after arriving, Mr Engelbert and the other officers enter the school and begin a methodical sweep of the first floor before moving up towards the second, where gunfire can be clearly heard.
Officers Kill The Shooter
In a clip taken from Mr Collazo's bodycam, an officer can be heard saying "we've got one down", to which Mr Collazo replies: "Keep pushing." The officers then begin jogging down a hall, past a victim on the floor.
The video shows that Mr Engelbert first encountered the shooter after rounding a corner into an atrium from where Hale appeared to be shooting.
He fires four shots at Hale, who falls to the ground. Other officers fire four more shots and shout at the shooter to stop moving. The suspect's weapons are then removed as the shooter lies motionless in front of the atrium window.
The shooting of the suspect took place less than four minutes after officers first pulled up to the school in their vehicles.
The actions of the officers at the scene - particularly Mr Engelbert and Mr Collazo - have been credited with saving the lives of other potential victims.
In an interview with the BBC's US media partner CBS News, Mr Drake said that "we could have [had] far more casualties than we had".
"They immediately responded when inside, addressed and mitigated the suspect," he added.
The response in Nashville appears to stand in stark contrast to police actions in the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas.
In that incident, police hesitated for 74 minutes, giving the suspect more time to kill. A total of 21 people, including 19 children, died.
"I would say that under extreme circumstances, they [Mr Engelbert and Mr Collazo] went above and beyond," police trainer Todd McGhee told the local Tennessean newspaper. "Those first responding officers were the model response in how active shooter response should be."
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