Nashville police have released surveillance video showing the shooter arriving at a private Christian school before unleashing terror in an attack that left six people dead, including three children, on Monday.
In redacted footage, the shooter, identified by police as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, can be seen driving a Honda Fit onto The Covenant School campus on Burton Hills Boulevard shortly before 10 a.m., the Police Department said. of Nashville in a statement accompanying the video release. Monday.
About 10 minutes later, surveillance video from inside the school captures glass in a set of doors breaking before the shooter, dressed in a vest, camouflage pants and a backwards red baseball cap, climbs up one of the door frames.
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A rifle can be seen slung over one of the shooter’s shoulders in the video, which is just over 2 minutes long and has no audio. The shooter can then be seen going into different rooms and going through the door of a children’s ministry with a second rifle raised.
In the video, lights, possibly fire alarm lights, appear to flash on and off.
Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said that in addition to the surveillance video, the department will soon release body camera video of the officers who encountered the shooter.
Three 9-year-old students, identified by authorities as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, and three adults—Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61—died in the massacre. Koonce was the principal of the Covenant school, Hill was a janitor.
The shooter, who police say was a former student at the school, was fatally shot by officers shortly after arriving on the scene.
Police said they received the first calls about the shooter around 10:13 a.m. local time (11:13 a.m. ET).
«The response from the police department was swift,» police spokesman Don Aaron told reporters, noting that by 10:27 a.m., «the shooter was deceased.»
Officers heard gunshots coming from the second level and «immediately went to the shooting,» he said. When officers reached the second level, they saw the shooter, who was shooting, and the shooter was fatally shot, he said. A total of five policemen met the shooter and two opened fire, he said.
Police have said the shooter was a transgender person, with Drake saying: «We’re still in the initial investigation into all of that and whether it really played a role in this incident.»
A clear motive in the shooting has not yet been established, but police have said they believe a sense of «resentment» may have played a role.
«There’s some belief that there was some resentment about having to go to that school,» Drake told NBC News’ Lester Holt.
The shooter could have targeted the school, but Drake would not say whether police believed the specific people were being targeted.
The former student is alleged to have left writings that are being studied by local and federal investigators.
Police have said the shooter appeared to have carefully planned the attack with detailed maps and surveillance.
“We have some writing that we are reviewing that pertains to this date, the actual incident,” Drake told reporters hours after the shooting. «We have a drawn map of how all this was going to happen.»
denis romero contributed.