US school shooter was 'emotionally disturbed' and had an arsenal of weapons

New details about Audrey Elizabeth Hale emerged hours after police released harrowing video showing officers storming Covenant School and conducting a room-by-room search before confronting and fatally shooting the attacker.

Nashville school shooting suspect emotionally disturbed and in possession of gunpowder photo 1 — Surveillance camera image of mass shooter. Photo: Nashville Police

Hale used two assault weapons and a handgun in the attack on the elementary school, the latest in a string of mass shootings in the United States that have turned guns into a hot-button political issue.

Those three guns were among seven Hale purchased legally from five area stores, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake told reporters Tuesday.

The sheriff said Hale's parents were unaware that Hale owned seven guns, adding that they were under the impression that the suspect only owned one gun but had sold it.

Drake said it appeared the suspect had been trained in the use of firearms. Hale fired at officers from the second floor as they arrived in their patrol cars while skillfully standing back from large windows to avoid return fire.

Hale left behind a detailed map of the school showing entry points as well as what Drake described as a "manifesto" suggesting the female shooter may have planned to carry out shootings at other locations.

Hale identified himself as transgender, said Sheriff Drake. Investigators have not yet determined a motive, he added.

Quick police response

The newly released six-minute footage, edited together from the body cameras of two police officers, begins with an officer retrieving a rifle from the trunk of his car, as a staff member tells him the school is on lockdown but the two children have not been found.

X [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frM1zPPrvaY[/embed]

“Come on! I need three of you!” the officer shouted as he entered the building, where an alarm could be heard. The video shows the officers walking past noticeboards and closets as they searched room after room, before heading upstairs and encountering the killer.

Amid the gunfire, officers ran down the hallway — past what appeared to be a victim lying on the ground — and into the waiting area, where the shooter was seen falling to the floor after being shot.

Officer Rex Engelbert and Officer Michael Collazo — whose body camera footage provided — both fired multiple shots at the suspect. The video shows the attacker moving on the ground as another officer repeatedly yells, “Get your hands off the gun!”

Nashville police began receiving calls about a shooting at 10:13 a.m. Monday, spokesman Don Aaron told reporters Monday. The suspect was pronounced dead at 10:27 a.m. “The department’s response was very quick,” Aaron said.

Body camera footage shows police quickly searching for the shooter, in contrast to video showing police in Uvalde , Texas, waiting inside Robb Elementary School for more than an hour in May 2022 as a gunman inside a classroom continued his rampage, killing 19 children and two adults.

Monday's violence marked the 90th school shooting in the U.S. this year, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. Last year saw 303 such incidents, the highest in the database, which dates back to 1970.

The three 9-year-olds killed were identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. The three adults killed by the gunman were Katherine Koonce, 60, the school principal; Mike Hill, 61, a school custodian; and Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher.

Huy Hoang (according to Reuters, Fox News)

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