Nashville police have made public the bodycam footage of their response to the Covenant School shooting, in which they killed the shooter, Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a 28-year-old transgender former student, who had allegedly killed three 9-year-old children and three adults on Monday.
“The kids are all locked down, but we have two kids that we don’t know where they are,” one woman told Nashville Officer Rex Englebert as he grabbed his rifle from the back of his police SUV.
“OK,” he said. “Yes, ma’am.”
In the bodycam footage, officers can be seen quickly entering the building after unlocking a side door. They searched the classrooms with a sense of urgency, and after about three minutes, the sound of gunshots could be heard in the background. The officers then rushed up the stairs to the second floor.
The drama ended about 25 seconds later when officers confronted and fatally shot Hale.
The police response team consisted of multiple members, but Officers Englebert and Michael Collazo were specifically recognized for their active involvement in the incident. In a single footage clip released by the police, both officers’ body cameras were shown. Initially, Englebert took down the suspect, and then Collazo quickly stepped in as the police instructed Hale to stop moving and drop her weapons.
According to Dave Katz, the CEO of Global Security Group and a former DEA special agent who headed the agency’s ballistic shield program in the 1990s, the two officers who stopped Hale were “heroes indeed,” Fox News reported.
“That’s exactly what has to be done,” he told the outlet. “Heedless of officer safety, you enter and dispatch the shooter.”
According to the Metro Nashville Police Department, Hale had attended the school years ago, and evidence suggested that the attack was premeditated and planned, as the killer left written materials indicating the attack “was calculated and planned.”
Fox News noted: “According to its website, the Covenant School opened in 2001 as part of the Covenant Presbyterian Church and served children from pre-K through sixth grade.”
The victims of the shooting at the Covenant School were three 9-year-old children, including Hallie Scruggs, the daughter of the pastor, as well as Evelyn Dieckhaus and William Kinney. The adults who were killed were identified as 60-year-old Head of School Katherine Koonce, Cynthia Peak, 61, and Mike Hill, 61.
