AP β Nashville police released video Tuesday from a body-worn camera that shows a team of officers entering and searching an elementary school, then confronting and opening fire on an assailant who had murdered three children and three adults in the latest school shooting to roil the nation. The woman then directs officers to Fellowship Hall and says people inside had just heard gunshots.
Three officers, including Engelbert, search rooms one by one, holding rifles. Officers climb stairs to the second floor and enter a lobby area. Then a barrage of gunfire is heard. Then the shooter is shown motionless on the floor. Police earlier identified the shooter, who was killed by police, as 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. 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.
Hale did use male pronouns on a social media profile. The website of The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school founded in , lists a Katherine Koonce as the head of the school.
Her LinkedIn profile says she has led the school since July Peak was a substitute teacher, and Hill was a custodian, according to investigators. At least two of them were believed to have been obtained legally in the Nashville area, according to the chief.
