The assailant in the Nashville school shooting legally bought seven firearms from five stores before Monday’s deadly attack, the city’s police chief said Tuesday afternoon. The shooter used three of those weapons in the rampage, killing six people.
The three children killed in the attack were identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, all 9. The three adults killed in the attack — Mike Hill, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Cynthia Peak, 61 — all worked at The Covenant School, police said.
During Tuesday’s brief press conference, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Hill, who worked as a custodian, was shot by the assailant through a glass door that the shooter used to enter the school.
Police spokesman Don Aaron said investigators hadn’t found evidence that the shooter specifically targeted any of the victims. “This school, this church building was a target of the shooter,” Aaron said.
On “CBS Mornings” Tuesday, Drake said the shooter, a former student of the school, had planned the attack down to what the shooter would wear and had maps of the school.
AP Photo/John Amis
The parents of the shooter, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, were unaware the shooter had access to so many guns, Drake told reporters Tuesday. The parents thought that the shooter previously had one weapon and sold it, he said.
The purchases were made “over the past couple of years,” Aaron said. According to Drake, the weapons were hidden from the shooter’s parents — whom the shooter lived with, Aaron told reporters.
The assailant had also been receiving treatment for an “emotional disorder,” the police chief said. The treatment hadn’t been reported to authorities, Drake said.
The parents felt that the shooter shouldn’t own weapons, he said. They were under the impression that, after the shooter sold the one weapon, the shooter didn’t own any more guns.
Tennessee doesn’t have a “red flag” law that could give police the authority to remove weapons from a person, Drake said. If it had been reported that the shooter was suicidal or intended to hurt another person, then authorities would have tried to take the weapons away, the chief said.
“As it stands, we had absolutely no idea, actually, who this person was,” Drake said.
The new developments were announced after authorities released police body camera video of officers responding to the shooting and charging into the school, with one shouting, “Let’s go!” The bodycam video showed officers checking classrooms for the shooter in small groups and eventually confronting and fatally shooting the attacker inside the building.
Drake said on “CBS Mornings” that the shooter may have also had other targets in mind, including a mall and possibly some family members.
Sarah Lynch Baldwin contributed reporting.
