Video released by the Nashville Police Department Monday night showed a person breaking through the school’s glass doors and walking through the halls pointing a gun, in an attack that claimed the lives of six people, including three children.
For hours, police gave ambiguous information about the shooter’s gender, before identifying the suspect as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, identifying herself as transgender.
Confusion surrounded the shooter’s gender. While officials used “she” to refer to her, her LinkedIn account identified her as male.
In the video, we see Hale storming a side entrance to The Covenant Christian School with two rifles and a handgun, making her way in while shooting.
The Covenant is a Protestant school with 200 students from Kindergarten to about 12 years old, founded in a Presbyterian convent, according to The New York Times. The newspaper reported that one of the child victims was Haley Scruggs, daughter of church pastor Chad Scruggs.
The head of the school and the daughter of the church’s pastor were among those who died in the shooting on Monday at the Covenant School in Nashville. https://t.co/VqtCa2lJ3t
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 28, 2023
Nashville Police Chief John Drake does not rule out that this is a “possible motive” for the accident. Asked about the possibility that the shooter’s gender was a factor, Drake said, “There are suspicions about that, and we’re investigating all leads.”
He also told NBC that investigators knew Hale “may have been upset that she was sent to this school, but I don’t have all the details yet, and that’s why the accident happened.”
The United States, where the number of licensed weapons is estimated at nearly 400 million firearms, often witnesses bloody shootings, including in schools.
Data provided by the Armed Violence Archive shows that 129 mass shootings have occurred so far this year. A shooting incident is classified as mass when four or more people are killed or injured.