Nashville police officers who stopped school shooting honored as heroes
Fox News host Lawrence Jones reports the latest on the deadly Christian school shooting from Nashville.
Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old transgender artist, burst into a Christian school in Nashville Monday and killed six people, including three 9-year-olds, in a 14-minute rampage that ended with officers shooting the suspect in a common area.
The killer had attended the Covenant School, a church-linked elementary school, years ago, authorities said later, and was seeing a doctor due to an emotional disorder.
Police said the church and its ministries may have been targeted. However, the motive remained unclear and Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said investigators did not believe the killer chose any individual victim specifically.
Surveillance video shows Hale arrived outside the building in a gray Honda Fit around 9:54. The shooting began a short while later, beginning with Hale blowing a hole in a glass side door and ending when police stormed the building and dropped the shooter near a second-story window.
Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake identified the two officers who fatally shot school shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale on March 27, 2023. (Metro Nashville Police Department)
Here is a timeline of events:
9:54 a.m.
Hale's Honda Fit arrives, surveillance video shows, and sweeps through the lot before the soon-to-be killer found a parking space.
Covenant school shooter Audrey Hale is seen on surveillance footage driving into the school parking lot (0:03). (Twitter @MNPDNashville)
Police said they later found a manifesto inside the vehicle.
NASHVILLE SCHOOL SHOOTING: AUDREY HALE POLICE BODYCAMS RELEASED
10:10 a.m.
Hale fires through a side entryway, blasting out the glass and striking the first victim, janitor Michael Hill, in the process. The father of eight succumbed to his injuries, according to authorities. Hale enters, carrying a rifle and wearing camo pants, a backward hat, a white T-shirt and vest.
Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale is seen on surveillance footage climbing through the school's glass doors after shooting through them (0:48). (Twitter @MNPDNashville)
10:18 a.m.
Hale is seen patrolling the hallways, entering a church office and then leaving through another door. Police say the killer used three guns in the attack, two rifles and a pistol, and had purchased at least four other weapons that they recovered elsewhere.
Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale opens the church office doors once inside the school building (1:07). (Twitter @MNPDNashville)
The school surveillance video does not include sound, but emergency lights can be seen flickering throughout the ordeal.
NASHVILLE SCHOOL SHOOTING: OFFICERS WHO TOOK OUT COVENANT SHOOTER IDENTIFIED
10:20 a.m.
Surveillance video shows Hale in another hallway, marching past a sign marked "Children's Ministry" as the lights flicker.
Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale walks past the Children's Ministry desk (1:57). (Twitter @MNPDNashville)
The killer marches down the hallway, gun at the ready,
10:21 a.m.
Police released bodycam videos that do not include time stamps, however official statements can be used to estimate the timing.
Officer Rex Engelbert's perspective is the first shown on camera. He arrives, a female school employee breaks down the situation and he retrieves a rifle from the back of his SUV.
WATCH: Nashville police bodycam shows officers arrive at the Covenant School
"The kids are all locked down, but we have two kids that we don't know where they are," she says.
"OK," he says. "Yes, ma'am."
"At the end of this hall is Fellowship Hall," she continues. "They just said they heard gunshots down there and then upstairs are a bunch of kids."
A man hands him keys to a side entrance, and the alarm is blaring as he opens the door, entering with other armed officers.
"Let's go," Engelbert calls out. "I need three."
Police begin searching the school classroom by classroom, barking tactical commands as they cover one another and drive deeper into the building in search of the killer.
Nashville police searched room-by-room until they zeroed in on shooter Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old former student who attacked a Christian elementary school Monday, killing six, including three children. (Metropolitan Nashville Police Department)
10:23 a.m.
"It' sounds like it's upstairs," an officer can be heard saying on Engelbert's bodycam video.
The team then enters a stairwell and sprints up to the second level. As they reach the top, the sound of gunfire booms repeatedly.
Bodycam footage shows Metro Nashville Police Department officers racing past bulletin boards that had been decorated by children as they respond to the Covenant School shooting after 28-year-old Audrey Hale opened fire. (Metropolitan Nashville Police Department)
Engelbert charges passed other officers already in the hallway. More gunfire.
10:24 a.m.
The bloodshed ends with Metro Nashville Police Officers Engelbert and Michael Collazo opening fire on Hale on the school's second story.
Metro Nashville Police Officer Rex Engelbert was the first around the corner. He opened fire on active shooter Audrey Hale, taking the suspect out near a window where police say the killer was taking aim at officers outside. (Metropolitan Nashville Police Department)
Engelbert, who just last week received a commendation from the Metro Nashville Police Department for "precision policing," is the first around the corner.
He encounters the killer near a large window, from which Chief John Drake said Hale was firing on officers who were outside the building.
He fires four shots. Hale collapses.
Officers swarm the room, and Collazo fires again.
Audrey Hale was identified by police as the shooter who opened fire at the Covenant School on Monday morning, killing six people. (Fox News)
"Stop moving! Stop moving!" police command. "Get your hand away from the gun!"
Collazo, on his own bodycam, grabs a radio.
"Suspect down," he says, standing over Hale, who is collapsed near broken glass and no longer moving.
The rampage left three children, all 9, and three adults dead.
The student victims have been identified as Hallie Scruggs, whose father is the school's church pastor, Evelyn Dieckhaus and William Kinney.
Police identified the adult victims as 60-year-old Head of School Katherine Koonce, whom sources told Fox News Digital died after confronting Hale in the hallway; substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; and Hill, also 61.
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Fox News' Paul Best and Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.
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