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GRAPHIC VIDEO Body cams show Nashville police search school, fire at shooter
Officer Rex Engelbert’s body cam shows a woman greeting police outside as they arrive at The Covenant School on Monday. “The kids are all locked down, but we have two kids that we don’t know where they are,” she tells police.

“OK, yes, ma’am,” Engelbert replies.

The woman then directs officers to Fellowship Hall and says people inside had just heard gunshots. “Upstairs are a bunch of kids,” she says.

Three officers, including Engelbert, search rooms one by one, holding rifles. “Metro Police,” officers yell.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” one officer yells.

As alarms are heard going off in the school, one officer says, “It sounds like it’s upstairs.”

Officers climb stairs to the second floor and enter a lobby area. “Move in,” an officer yells. Then a barrage of gunfire is heard.

“Get your hands away from the gun,” an officer yells twice. Then the shooter is shown motionless on the floor.

Police earlier identified the shooter, who was killed by police, as 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale. They say Hale was a former student and shot through the doors of the private, Christian elementary school. Hale had drawn a detailed map of the school, including potential entry points, and conducted surveillance of the building before carrying out the massacre, authorities said.

Police have given unclear information on Hale’s gender. For hours Monday, police identified the shooter as a woman. At a late afternoon press conference, the police chief said Hale was transgender. After the news conference, police spokesperson Don Aaron declined to elaborate on how Hale identified.

In an email Tuesday, police spokesperson Kristin Mumford said Hale “was assigned female at birth. Hale did use male pronouns on a social media profile.”

The victims were children Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all age 9. The adults were Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61.

The website of The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school founded in 2001, lists a Katherine Koonce as the head of the school. Her LinkedIn profile says she has led the school since July 2016. Peak was a substitute teacher, and Hill was a custodian, according to investigators.

Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake did not say exactly what drove Hale but said in an interview with NBC News that investigators believe the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”

Drake provided chilling examples of the shooter’s elaborate planning for the targeted attack, the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country that has grown increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.

“We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident,” he told reporters. “We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place.”

Authorities said Hale was armed with two “assault-style” weapons, as well as a handgun. At least two of them were believed to have been obtained legally in the Nashville area, according to the chief. Police said a search of Hale’s home turned up a sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun and other unspecified evidence.

President Joe Biden again called on lawmakers for stronger gun safety laws.

“It is time to show some courage here,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday on CNN. It is time for Republicans in Congress to show some courage and to answer to these parents, to these families.”

Founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, The Covenant School is in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood just south of downtown Nashville that is home to the famous Bluebird Cafe, beloved by musicians and songwriters.

The school has about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade, as well as roughly 50 staff members.

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