A heavily-armed former student killed three young children and three staff members in what appeared to be a carefully planned attack at a private elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday, before being shot dead by police.
By Sharon Bernstein
THE 200 young children enrolled at the Covenant School, a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, start each day with chapel and study the Bible twice a week.
“The beauty of a PreSchool-6th school is in its simplicity and innocence,” the introductory paragraph of the school’s website reads. “Students are free to be children.”
On Monday, the school became the site of the latest mass shooting in the US, when a 28-year-old former student opened fire with an assault weapon, killing three children and three adults before being shot dead by police.
The three students killed were all nine years old: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney.
The adults were head of school Katherine Koonce, 60, a pickleball enthusiast who had told the Nashville Tennessean she added the sport to the school’s physical education initiatives; Cynthia Peak, who police said was believed to be a substitute teacher; and custodian Mike Hill, both 61.
The carnage made a stark and horrible contrast to the images of everyday life on the school’s website and Facebook page.
Just a day before the shooting, administrators posted on Facebook pictures of staff members sharing gifts and snacks as they celebrated the impending birth of the son of the assistant head of school.
The school also posted a notice that it was looking to hire two new employees – a kindergarten aide and a fourth-grade teacher. And photos proudly showed boys competing in the opening day of the school’s first golf season at the local Cheekwood Golf Course.
“Go Knights!” the posting cheered.
“Great job, boys,” a community member wrote.
For Megan Hill, the day’s agony unfolded over six long hours, marked by posts on Facebook in which she identified herself as the niece of one of the victims.
“Shooting at the school where my Dad, my uncle and my stepmom work please pray right now,” she wrote at about noon local time.
Six hours later, she posted an update.
“I’m just in shock and disbelief,” wrote Hill, who did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters. “My heart is broken I do not understand why someone would shoot up a school with precious babies inside.”
“My uncle lost his life in this shooting today,” she wrote. “My moms brother Lord help me and my family please pray for all my cousins.”
The school is affiliated with Covenant Presbyterian Church, part of an evangelical movement that branched off from the more liberal Presbyterian Church in 1981. It offers enrichment classes in art, science and technology, leadership and music.
The school’s motto is “intentionality, authenticity, curiosity,” according to its website, which is filled with video images of smiling students singing, dancing and tumbling in a gymnasium. Its focus, the website says, is on “shepherding hearts, empowering minds and celebrating childhood.”
Classes are small, with an average size of 12 students, about a quarter of whom receive financial aid, the website says. Tuition starts at $11,500 per year for kindergarten and rises to $16,500 for fifth and sixth grade.
No one answered the phone or responded to e-mails at the school on Monday.
SEEKING CLUES
Investigators seeking clues to the latest bout of mass gun violence in the US pored over a “manifesto” and other writings uncovered after Monday’s shooting.
Police killed the perpetrator of Monday’s shooting in Nashville, identified by authorities as local resident Audrey Elizabeth Hale, when they stormed the Covenant School within minutes of gunfire erupting in the private church-based academy.
Authorities did not immediately offer a motive for the killings. But Nashville Police Chief John Drake said in an NBC News interview that investigators believed Hale harboured “some resentment for having to go to that school” as a child. Drake did not elaborate.
During an earlier press briefing, the chief said Hale self-identified as being transgender, though Drake offered no further clarity. Drake and other officials repeatedly referred to the suspect with female pronouns.
Hale used male pronouns on a LinkedIn page that listed recent jobs in graphic design and grocery delivery.
Among various pieces of evidence under examination by police and FBI agents conducting an investigation were some writings by the assailant, including a “manifesto” and a detailed, hand-drawn map of the school showing various entry points, Drake said.
The chief told NBC the manifesto “indicates there was going to be shootings at multiple locations and that the school was one of them.” He said the Covenant School was singled out for attack but that the individual victims were targeted at random.
Authorities said Drake, armed with two assault-style weapons, one of them a rifle, as well as a 9mm pistol, gained entry to the school by shooting through the window of a side door.
Surveillance camera video posted online by police on Monday night shows the suspect, wearing camouflage pants and a black vest over a white T-shirt, with a red baseball cap on backwards, blasting through the glass pane of an outer door after driving up to the building in a car. The footage then shows the assailant stalking through a hallway as alarm lights flash.
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department began receiving calls about a shooter at 10.13am, and arriving officers reported hearing gunfire coming from the building’s second floor, police spokesperson Don Aaron told reporters.
Two officers from a five-member team shot the assailant in a lobby area, and the suspect was pronounced dead by 10.27am.
– REUTERS
