The Nashville police released footage on Tuesday of a body-worn camera that shows a team of officers searching an elementary school and confronting the assailant, who had killed three adults and three children. The six-minute video supplements an earlier release of two minutes of edited surveillance footage that shows the shooter's car driving up to the school, glass doors being shot out, and the shooter ducking through one of them.
The new video shows the police officers arriving at The Covenant School and searching the building while holding rifles. They are heard yelling "Metro Police" as they go up the stairs to the second floor, where they confront the shooter and open fire. The police earlier identified the shooter as Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a former student who shot through the doors of the private, Christian elementary school.
Police response times have been questioned
The victims were three children aged 9 and three adults, including Cynthia Peak, Katherine Koonce, and Mike Hill. Police response times to school shootings have come under greater scrutiny after the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas.
The police have not given clear information on Hale's gender, stating that Hale was assigned female at birth and used male pronouns on a social media profile. Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said in an interview that investigators believe the shooter had "some resentment for having to go to that school."
Hale was armed with weapons
Hale was armed with two "assault-style" weapons, as well as a handgun, had drawn a detailed map of the school, and conducted surveillance of the building before carrying out the massacre.
President Joe Biden pleaded with Congress to pass stronger gun safety laws, including a ban on assault weapons. The Covenant School is in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood in Nashville, with about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade, as well as roughly 50 staff members.
