A timeline of Covenant School shooting in Nashville: What we know
As a public service, The Tennessean has made this content free. Follow the latest updates on the Covenant School shooting as they happen in our live blog here.
Tennesseans continue to mourn following Monday's mass shooting at Covenant School, a private Christian school in the Nashville neighborhood of Green Hills.
The shooting, which marked the deadliest mass shooting in state history, left three children and three adults dead, in addition to the shooter, who was later identified as 28-year-old Nashville resident Audrey Elizabeth Hale.
Killed in the shooting: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all age 9. Also, Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61.
Koonce was the Covenant's head of school.
Here is a timeline of everything we know, according to police, security and body camera footage and interviews.
9:53 a.m.
Hale pulls into the parking lot of Covenant School, driving a gray Honda Fit.
10:11 a.m.
Hale, who had not yet been identified, enters a side entrance of the school, which houses grades K-6. Armed with two assault rifles and a handgun, Hale shoots out the glass of the doors to enter.
10:13 a.m.
According to the Metro Nashville Police Department, the first call comes in regarding an active shooter.
10:23 a.m.
Metro police are on site, and inside a classroom, as shown on the body camera footage released Tuesday morning.
While Hale’s path through the school is currently unknown, officer response was “swift,” according to Don Aaron, a spokesperson for the MNPD.
According to an official statement, Hale fired on arriving police vehicles from a second story window, blowing out the glass of the massive arched window.
Aaron added that, as officers moved in, they could hear “shots coming from the second level.”
10:25 a.m.
Officers approached Hale on the second floor. Hale was shot by the five-member police team in a second-floor lobby.
Between 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.
Parents of students at Covenant School were notified of the shooting and asked to gather at Woodmont Baptist Church to be reunified with their children. As parents arrived, officials collected names of parents awaiting their children.
Around 11 a.m.
Patients began arriving at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Of the seven killed, five were transported to the campus: three children to the Children’s Emergency Center and two adults to the Adult Emergency Center. All arrived with heavy police presence, and all were later pronounced dead.
Noon
Busloads of children arrive at Woodmont Baptist Church. Several children stuck their heads and arms out of the open school bus windows, yelling and waving to the parents waiting for them. A string of students led by their teacher held hands as they walked from the bus to the church doors.
Inside the church sanctuary, parents are told by officials to line up and give their children's names, grades and classrooms. Officials count children in a separate area of the church individually reunite with parents.
1 p.m.
Families continue to arrive at the Children’s Emergency Center, most with police escort. Sobbing and screaming are heard in the parking lot of the hospital.
By 4 p.m.
All families gathered at Woodmont Baptist Church are reunited with surviving children, and the investigation — and the mourning — began.
Police later identified the shooter as Hale. Hale was a former student at The Covenant School, according to police.
Hale was an illustrator and graphic designer and used male pronouns, according to social media. Police initially identified Hale as a woman.
Mourning begins for Nashville residents
Multiple vigils were quickly planned across the city, with overwhelming turnout.
In light of the mass shooting, Lauren Daigle’s exclusive album preview concert, previously scheduled for Monday night, was postponed. The event has been rescheduled to Wednesday, April 5. All tickets for the originally scheduled date will be honored.
In place of the album preview, Daigle held a community prayer vigil, at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Marathon Music Works, 1402 Clinton St.
Another community vigil will be held Tuesday at 4 p.m. at Davidson Academy Prayer Garden, located at 1414 Old Hickory Blvd.
Police body camera footage released
Security camera footage released late Monday shows the first moments of the shooting. Hale pulls into the parking lot at the school, approaches a door shooting out the glass and then patrols the halls with gun raised.
Metro Nashville police also published a news release late Monday that said investigators found writings that revealed the attack was "calculated and planned."
Police released a six minute compilation video Tuesday morning of officers Rex Englebert and Michael Collazo's body camera footage.
Learn more: Nashville school shooting updates: Body camera footage inside school released
The video begins when Englebert arrived on scene where a staff member outside the school directed officers to the second floor of the school. Police quickly worked through the first floor clearing classrooms and encouraging each other to move faster.
As Englebert moved to the second floor, eight gunshots can be heard down the hallway. The officer rounded the corner and fired four shots. Officers approached Hale, who was laying on the ground next to a wide window overlooking the parking lot. Hale is visible in the video but is partially obscured by a blurred box.
About the four-minute mark, the video cuts to Collazo's body camera. As he ascends the stairs to the second floor, an officer ahead of him looks left out.
"We've got one down," he says before turning right down the hallway.
Collazo follows closely behind Englebert, then moves to the right of him firing four shots at Hale.
"Suspect down, suspect down," Collazo calls over the radio.
Have a story to tell? Reach Angele Latham by email at [email protected], by phone at 731-343-5212, or follow her on Twitter at @angele_latham.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Timeline of Nashville shooting: What happened at Covenant School
