Tag: 2022 uvalde elementary school shooting

Case dismissed against teenage cousin of Uvalde school shooter for allegedly threatening school shooting | CNN

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Editor’s Note: (6/27/24) Since this story was published in August 2023, the case against Nathan James Cruz was dismissed due to a missing witness, according to court records in Bexar County, Texas.

CNN
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The teenage cousin of the gunman responsible for the 2022 Uvalde, Texas, school shooting was arrested Monday on suspicion of threatening to “do the same thing” to a school, according to court documents obtained by CNN.

Nathan James Cruz, 17, was arrested on a felony charge of making a terroristic threat to a public place and a misdemeanor charge of making a terroristic threat against a family member, according to Bexar County Central Magistrate records.

Cruz is the cousin of Salvador Ramos, the 18-year-old who fatally shot 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in May 2022, San Antonio police Sgt. Washington Moscoso told the New York Times on Monday.

CNN has sought comment from San Antonio police.

Ramos stormed into Robb Elementary last year armed with an assault rifle and tactical vest and opened fire on two adjoining classrooms – perpetrating one of the deadliest school shootings in modern US history. Law enforcement’s response has been heavily scrutinized, as officers waited outside the classrooms for more than an hour before entering and fatally shooting Ramos.

Cruz’s mother contacted police on Monday after her daughter reported that Cruz said he planned to “do the same thing” as his cousin, according to an affidavit obtained by CNN.

His mother told investigators she was “especially concerned because the suspect is currently on probation, was intoxicated at the time” and because the family lives across the street from an elementary school, the affidavit states.

Cruz’s sister told investigators that while she was giving her brother a ride, he “threatened to shoot her in the head and stated he would ‘shoot the school,’” according to the affidavit.

The mother allegedly overheard a phone conversation in which Cruz was attempting to illegally acquire an AR-15-style assault rifle – the same style used by Ramos to carry out the Uvalde shooting, according to the affidavit.

Following his arrest, Cruz “denied making any threats” when interviewed by a detective, the document states.

CNN has been unable to confirm whether Cruz has an attorney. His charges carry a combined $160,000 bond, according to the magistrate records.

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June 27, 2024
US School Violence Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
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Here is a list of incidents of elementary, middle and high school violence with at least one fatality, from 1927 to the present. Suicides, gang-related incidents and deaths resulting from domestic conflicts are not included. If a perpetrator was killed or died by suicide during the incident, their death is not included in the fatality totals.

Because there is no central database tracking school violence incidents, this list is based primarily on media reports and is not complete or representative of all incidents.

READ MORE: Ten years of school shootings

January 4, 2024 – Perry High School – Perry, Iowa. Dylan Butler, 17, fatally shoots a sixth grade student and wounds five other people. The wounded include four students and the school’s principal. Butler dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

March 27, 2023 – Covenant School – Nashville, Tennessee. Three children and three adults are killed in a shooting. The shooter is fatally shot by responding officers.

November 8, 2022 – Ingraham High School – Seattle, Washington. A 17-year-old student is fatally shot, and two teens are arrested in connection with the shooting.

October 24, 2022 – Central Visual and Performing Arts High School – St. Louis, Missouri. A teen and an adult are killed in a shooting. The gunman dies after an exchange of gunfire with police.

May 24, 2022 – Robb Elementary School – Uvalde, Texas. Salvador Ramos, 18, fatally shoots 19 students and two teachers. Responding officers fatally shoot Ramos.

March 31, 2022 – Tanglewood Middle School – Greenville, South Carolina. 12-year-old student Jamari Cortez Bonaparte Jackson is fatally shot. The suspected shooter, also 12, is arrested and charged with murder and other firearm charges.

January 29, 2022 – Beloit Memorial High School – Beloit, Wisconsin. Jion Broomfield, 19, is fatally shot after a basketball game. Amaree Goodall, 19, is arrested in connection with the shooting.

January 19, 2022 – Oliver Citywide Academy – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 15-year-old freshman Marquis Campbell is shot on school grounds. Campbell is taken to the hospital in critical condition and dies from gun injuries. In January 2024, Eugene Watson, 19, is sentenced to 20-40 years in prison.

November 30, 2021 – Oxford High School – Oxford, Michigan. Ethan Crumbley, 15, opens fire, killing four students and injuring seven others. Crumbley later pleads guilty to one count of terrorism causing death, four counts of first-degree murder and 19 other charges. In 2023, Crumbley is sentenced to life in prison without parole.

September 1, 2021 – Mount Tabor High School – Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A student is fatally shot, and a suspect is taken into custody.

March 1, 2021 – Watson Chapel Junior High – Pine Bluff, Arkansas. A student is fatally shot, and a 15-year-old male suspect is arrested. In 2023, Thomas Quarles pleads guilty to murder and is sentenced to 40 years in prison.

January 14, 2020 – Bellaire High School – Bellaire, Texas. A 16-year-old male fatally shoots classmate Cesar Cortes. The teen is arrested and charged with manslaughter. The county district attorney said it appeared the shooting was unintentional. In 2021, the teen is sentenced to twelve years in prison, according to authorities.

November 14, 2019 – Saugus High School – Santa Clarita, California. Nathaniel Berhow, 16, opens fire, killing two and injuring three, then shoots himself.

May 6, 2019 – STEM School Highlands Ranch – Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Suspects Devon Erickson, 18, and Alec McKinney, 16, are apprehended after a shooting leaves one dead and eight others injured. Erickson is later sentenced to life in prison without parole while McKinney is sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

May 18, 2018 – Santa Fe High School – Santa Fe, Texas. Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, allegedly opens fire killing 10 and injuring 13. Pagourtzis is arrested and charged with capital murder and aggravated assault of a public servant. In November 2019, he is declared mentally incompetent to stand trial.

February 14, 2018 – Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – Parkland, Florida. Former student, Nikolas Cruz, 19, opens fire with an AR-15 rifle, killing 17 people and injuring 17 others. According to law enforcement, the suspect activated a fire alarm to draw people outside to increase casualties. Cruz pleads guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. Cruz is later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

January 23, 2018 – Marshall County High School – Benton, Kentucky. Gabriel R. Parker, 15, opens fire killing two and injuring 18 others. The suspect is arrested at the scene and later charged with two counts of murder and 14 counts of first degree assault. Parker is later sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty.

December 7, 2017 – Aztec High School – Aztec, New Mexico. William Atchison shoots and kills students Casey Jordan Marquez and Francisco Fernandez. Atchison, a former student at the high school, dies of what police believe to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

September 13, 2017 – Freeman High School – Spokane, Washington. Caleb Sharpe, a sophomore at the school, opens fire killing one student and injuring three others. Sharpe later pleads guilty and is sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.

April 10, 2017 – North Park Elementary School – San Bernardino, California. Jonathan Martinez, 8, and his teacher, Karen Smith, are killed when Cedric Anderson, Smith’s estranged husband, walks into her special needs classroom and opens fire, armed with a large-caliber revolver. Two other students are wounded. Anderson then kills himself.

September 28, 2016 – Townville Elementary School – Greenville, South Carolina. A 14-year-old male opens fire on the playground, wounding two children and a teacher. Jacob Hall, one of the wounded children, dies three days later. Before going to the school, the teen, later identified as Jesse Osborne, shot and killed his father. In December 2018, Osborne pleads guilty to two murder charges and three attempted murder charges. In November 2019, Osborne is sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, plus 30 years.

October 24, 2014 – Marysville-Pilchuck High School – Marysville, Washington. Freshman Jaylen Fryberg shoots five people in the school cafeteria, killing one. Fryberg dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene. A second victim dies of her injuries two days later; a third dies on October 31. A fourth victim dies on November 7.

June 10, 2014 – Reynolds High School – Troutdale, Oregon. Jared Padgett, 15, shoots and kills 14-year-old Emilio Hoffman in the school gym. He later takes his own life.

December 13, 2013 – Arapahoe High School – Centennial, Colorado. Karl Pierson, 18, opens fire inside, critically injuring one student and then killing himself. 17-year-old Claire Davis dies on December 21, eight days after being shot.

October 21, 2013 – Sparks Middle School – Sparks, Nevada. 12-year-old student Jose Reyes takes his parent’s handgun to school and shoots three, injuring two 12-year-old male students and killing Mike Landsberry, a teacher and Marine veteran. He then kills himself.

December 14, 2012 – Sandy Hook Elementary School – Newtown, Connecticut. Adam Lanza, 20, guns down 20 children, ages 6 and 7, and six adults, school staff and faculty, before turning the gun on himself. Investigating police later find Nancy Lanza, Adam’s mother, dead from a gunshot wound. The final count is 27 dead.

February 27, 2012 – Chardon High School – Chardon, Ohio. Student Daniel Parmertor, 16, is killed and four others wounded when student T.J. Lane, 17, opens fire in the school. On February 28, Demetrius Hewlin, 16, dies from his wounds and Russell King Jr., 17, is declared brain dead. In March 2013, Lane is sentenced to life in prison. On September 11, 2014, Lane escapes from prison. He is captured early the next morning.

January 5, 2011 – Millard South High School – Omaha, Nebraska. 17-year-old Robert Butler Jr. opens fire on Principal Curtis Case and Vice Principal Vicki Kasper. Butler then kills himself about a mile from the school. Vice Principal Kasper later dies at the hospital.

February 5, 2010 – Discovery Middle School – Madison, Alabama. 14-year-old Todd Brown dies after being shot in the head in a school hallway. Fellow ninth-grader Hammad Memon later pleads guilty and is sentenced to 30 years in prison.

October 16, 2009 – Carolina Forest High School – Conway, South Carolina. 16-year-old student Trevor Varinecz is shot and killed by a police officer after allegedly pulling a knife and stabbing the officer.

September 23, 2009 – John Tyler High School – Tyler, Texas. A 16-year-old, Byron Truvia, is taken into custody for stabbing and killing high school teacher Todd R. Henry. Truvia is later found unfit to stand trial.

September 15, 2009 – Coral Gables Senior High School – Coral Gables, Florida. 17-year-old Andy Jesus Rodriguez fatally stabs 17-year-old sophomore Juan Carlos Rivera during a fight. Rodriguez is later sentenced to 40 years in prison.

August 21, 2008 – Central High School – Knoxville, Tennessee. 15-year-old Jamar Siler shoots and kills 15-year-old Ryan McDonald. In 2011, Siler receives 30 years in prison in a plea agreement.

January 3, 2007 – Henry Foss High School – Tacoma, Washington. Student Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, fatally shoots another student, Samnang Kok, 17. Chanthabouly is sentenced in 2009 to more than 23 years in prison for second-degree murder.

October 2, 2006 – West Nickel Mines Amish School – Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. 32-year-old Charles Roberts IV goes to a small Amish school and takes at least 11 girls hostage. Five girls were killed and six others wounded. Roberts then kills himself.

September 29, 2006 – Weston High School – Cazenovia, Wisconsin. 15-year-old Eric Hainstock goes to school armed with a shotgun and a handgun. After a struggle with the school janitor, Hainstock shoots and kills the school principal. He is convicted of murder in August 2007 and sentenced to life in prison.

September 27, 2006 – Platte Canyon High School – Bailey, Colorado. 54-year-old Duane Morrison takes six female students hostage. When SWAT teams enter the school, Morrison shoots 16-year-old Emily Keyes. Morrison then kills himself. Keyes later dies at the hospital.

November 8, 2005 – Campbell County Comprehensive High School – Jacksboro, Tennessee. 15-year-old Kenneth Bartley Jr. opens fire on a principal and two assistant principals, killing one of them and critically wounding another, authorities said. In 2007, Bartley accepts a plea bargain, but his guilty plea is later vacated. In a retrial in February 2014, Bartley is found guilty of reckless homicide and not guilty of attempted first degree murder. He is sentenced to time served and released.

March 21, 2005 – Red Lake High School – Red Lake, Minnesota. 16-year-old Jeff Weise kills his grandfather and another adult, five students, a teacher and a security officer. He then kills himself.

February 3, 2004 – Southwood Middle School – Palmetto Bay, Florida. 14-year-old Michael Hernandez stabs to death 14-year-old Jaime Rodrigo Gough. In 2013, an appeals court tosses Hernandez’s life sentence and remands the case for re-sentencing. In 2016, Hernandez is again sentenced to life in prison.

September 24, 2003 – Rocori High School – Cold Spring, Minnesota. 15-year-old Jason McLaughlin shoots and kills 17-year-old Aaron Rollins and critically injures another student. The second student dies in October. In 2005, McLaughlin is sentenced to consecutive terms of life in prison for first-degree murder and 12 years for second-degree murder.

April 24, 2003 – Red Lion Area Junior High School – Red Lion, Pennsylvania. 14-year-old James Sheets brings a revolver to school and kills his principal, Eugene Segro, and then himself.

December 5, 2001 – Springfield High School – Springfield, Massachusetts. At a high school for troubled teens, 17-year-old Corey Ramos stabs to death Reverend Theodore Brown, a counselor at the school. In 2003, Ramos is sentenced to life in prison.

March 5, 2001 – Santana High School – Santee, California. 15-year-old Charles “Andy” Williams kills two classmates, a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, and injures 13. Williams is sentenced in 2002 to at least 50 years in prison.

May 26, 2000 – Lake Worth Community Middle School – Lake Worth, Florida. 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill, after being sent home for misbehaving, returns to school and shoots and kills his teacher Barry Grunow. Brazill is sentenced to 28 years in prison.

February 29, 2000 – Buell Elementary School – Mount Morris Township, Michigan. An unnamed 6-year-old boy shoots and kills a 6-year-old playmate, Kayla Rolland, at school. He is removed from his mother’s custody and put up for adoption.

November 19, 1999 – Deming Middle School – Deming, New Mexico. 12-year-old Victor Cordova shoots and kills a 13-year-old classmate. He is sentenced to two years in juvenile detention.

April 20, 1999 – Columbine High School – Littleton, Colorado. 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold kill 12 fellow students and one teacher before dying by suicide in the school library.

May 21, 1998 – Thurston High School – Springfield, Oregon. After killing his parents the previous day, 15-year-old Kip Kinkel returns to Thurston High armed with a rifle. He kills two students in the school cafeteria, a 16 and a 17-year-old. He is sentenced to 112 years in prison.

April 24, 1998 – James Parker Middle School – Edinboro, Pennsylvania. 14-year-old Andrew Wurst shoots and kills science teacher John Gillette at a school dance. He is sentenced to serve between 30 and 60 years.

March 24, 1998 – Westside Middle School – Jonesboro, Arkansas. 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson ambush fellow students and their teachers, killing five. Johnson is incarcerated in a youth facility and released on his 21st birthday, August 11, 2005. Golden is released on his 21st birthday, May 25, 2007.

December 1, 1997 – Heath High School – West Paducah, Kentucky. 14-year-old Michael Carneal opens fire on a school prayer group, killing three girls, who were 14, 15 and 17. He is serving life in prison.

October 1, 1997 – Pearl High School – Pearl, Mississippi. After killing his mother at home, 16-year-old Luke Woodham arrives at school and shoots two classmates. Woodham is serving three life sentences plus 140 years.

February 19, 1997 – Bethel High School – Bethel, Alaska. 16-year-old Evan Ramsey uses a shotgun stolen from his foster home to kill a 15-year-old student and the school principal. He is currently serving a term of 210 years.

September 25, 1996 – Dekalb Alternative School – Decatur, Georgia. 16-year-old David Dubose Jr. shoots and kills English teacher Horace Morgan on the steps of the school. Dubose is found not guilty by reason of insanity and is committed indefinitely to a state mental hospital.

February 2, 1996 – Frontier Junior High School – Moses Lake, Washington. 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis takes a rifle to school and kills two classmates and a teacher. He is sentenced to life in prison.

January 19, 1996 – Winston Education Center – Washington. Two masked gunmen kill 14-year-old Damion Blocker in a stairwell. 16-year-old shooter Darrick Evans is given a sentence of 41 years to life in prison.

November 15, 1995 – Richland High School – Lynnville, Tennessee. 17-year-old Jamie Rouse kills a business teacher and a 16-year-old student. Rouse is serving a life sentence.

October 12, 1995 – Blackville-Hilda High School – Blackville, South Carolina. 15-year-old Toby Sincino kills a teacher and then himself.

November 7, 1994 – Wickliffe Middle School – Wickliffe, Ohio. 37-year-old drifter Keith Ledeger shoots and kills school custodian Peter Christopher and injures three others. Ledeger is sentenced to life in prison.

April 12, 1994 – Margaret Leary Elementary School – Butte, Montana. 10-year-old James Osmanson, teased because his parents have AIDS, shoots and kills an 11-year-old on the school playground. Osmanson is sent to a private residential treatment center.

February 1, 1994 – Valley View Junior High School – Simi Valley, California. 13-year-old Philip Hernandez stabs to death a 14-year-old student in a school hallway. Hernandez is sentenced to four years in a California Youth Authority prison.

December 1, 1993 – Wauwatosa West High School – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. 21-year-old former student Leonard McDowell returns to his high school and kills Associate Principal Dale Breitlow. He is sentenced to life in prison.

May 24, 1993 – Upper Perkiomen High School – Pennsburg, Pennsylvania. 15-year-old student Jason Smith kills another student who had bullied him. He is sentenced to between 12 and 25 years in prison.

April 15, 1993 – Ford Middle School – Acushnet, Massachusetts. 44-year-old David Taber invades a middle school and takes three hostages. He later shoots and kills school nurse Carol Day. He is found not guilty of the murder by reason of insanity.

April 12, 1993 – Dartmouth High School – Dartmouth, Massachusetts. 16-year-old Jason Robinson is stabbed to death in his social studies class by three teenage attackers who invade the classroom.

January 18, 1993 – East Carter High School – Grayson, Kentucky. 17-year-old student Scott Pennington shoots and kills a teacher and custodian. He is sentenced to life in prison.

May 1, 1992 – Lindhurst High School – Olivehurst, California. 20-year-old dropout Eric Houston returns to his high school and kills a former teacher and three students. Houston is sentenced to death.

February 26, 1992 – Thomas Jefferson High School – Brooklyn, New York. A 15-year-old shoots and kills two other students. The shooter, Kahlil Sumpter, is sentenced in 1993 to between 6 2/3 and 20 years in prison and is released in 1998.

November 25, 1991 – Thomas Jefferson High School – Brooklyn, New York. A stray bullet kills a 16-year-old student during an argument between two other teens. Shooter Jason Bentley, 14, is sentenced in 1992 to three to nine years in prison.

January 17, 1989 – Cleveland Elementary School – Stockton, California. 24-year-old drifter Patrick Purdy uses an AK-47 to kill five children on an elementary school playground. He then takes his own life.

December 16, 1988 – Atlantic Shores Christian School – Virginia Beach, Virginia. 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot shoots and kills teacher Karen Farley. Elliott is sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

September 26, 1988 – Oakland Elementary School – Greenwood, South Carolina. 19-year-old James Wilson, copying the Winnetka, Illinois murders, kills 8-year-olds Tequila Thomas and Shequila Bradley in their school cafeteria. Wilson’s death sentence is overturned in January 2003.

May 20, 1988 – Hubbard Woods Elementary School – Winnetka, Illinois. 30-year-old Laurie Dann invades an elementary school and kills an 8-year-old boy. She injures six other people before taking her own life.

February 11, 1988 – Pinellas Park High School – Largo, Florida. Two 15-year-olds with stolen weapons, Jason McCoy and Jason Harless, shoot and kill Assistant Principal Richard Allen. McCoy serves two years in prison, and Harless serves eight.

March 2, 1987 – Dekalb High School – Dekalb, Missouri. 12-year-old Nathan Faris, who was teased about being overweight, shoots 13-year-old Timothy Perrin and then takes his own life.

December 4, 1986 – Fergus High School – Lewistown, Montana. 14-year-old Kristofer Hans shoots and kills substitute teacher Henrietta Smith. He is sentenced to 206 years in prison in 1988.

May 16, 1986 – Cokeville Elementary School – Cokeville, Wyoming. A couple in their 40s, David and Doris Young, take over an elementary school with a bomb and hold 150 children and adults hostage, demanding $300 million in ransom. The bomb accidentally detonates, setting the school on fire. Investigators later determine that during the fire David Young shot his wife and then killed himself. 74 people were injured in the fire.

January 21, 1985 – Goddard Junior High School – Goddard, Kansas. 14-year-old James Kearbey shoots and kills Principal Jim McGee. Kearbey spends seven years in juvenile detention and is released at the age of 21. On October 31, 2001, Kearbey is involved in a six-hour standoff with Wichita, Kansas, police. No injuries resulted and Kearbey is later acquitted of aggravated assault on a police officer.

February 24, 1984 – 49th Street School – Los Angeles. Sniper Tyrone Mitchell shoots at children on an elementary school playground, killing one and injuring 11. He later takes his own life.

January 20, 1983 – Parkway South Junior High – St. Louis. An unnamed 14-year-old shoots and kills another student before turning the gun on himself.

March 19, 1982 – Valley High School – Las Vegas. 17-year-old Pat Lizotte shoots and kills psychology teacher Clarence Piggott during class. Lizotte is sentenced to life in prison.

January 29, 1979 – Grover Cleveland Elementary – San Diego. 16-year-old Brenda Spencer opens fire on a school across from her home, killing the principal and janitor.

May 18, 1978 – Murchison Junior High School – Austin, Texas. 13-year-old John Christian shoots and kills his English teacher Wilbur Grayson, during class. The shooter is the son of George Christian, press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson from 1967 to 1969. After time in a psychiatric hospital, Christian attends high school in the Dallas area.

February 22, 1978 – Everett High School – Lansing, Michigan. 15-year-old Roger Needham kills another student who had bullied him. After four years in juvenile detention, Needham is released. He later earns a Ph.D in math and works as a professor in Missouri and New York.

March 18, 1975 – Sumner High School – St. Louis. 16-year-old Stephen Goods, a bystander, is shot and killed during a fight between other teens.

December 30, 1974 – Olean High School – Olean, New York. Honors student Anthony Barbaro kills a school janitor and two passers-by. Barbaro later kills himself while awaiting trial.

October 5, 1966 – Grand Rapids High School – Grand Rapids, Minnesota. 15-year-old David Black injures another student before killing teacher Forrest Willey.

September 15, 1959 – Edgar Allen Poe Elementary – Houston. Convict Paul Orgeron explodes a suitcase of dynamite on a school playground, killing himself, two adults and three children.

May 18, 1927 – Bath Consolidated Schoolhouse – Bath, Michigan. Farmer Andrew Kehoe sets off two explosions at the school, killing himself, six adults and 38 children.

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January 30, 2024
98-year-old woman and her daughter among 3 victims killed by New Mexico student who fired randomly, hitting cars and homes | CNN

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CNN
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A 98-year-old woman and her 73-year-old daughter were among the three people killed by an 18-year-old high school student who roamed through his neighborhood Monday firing indiscriminately at homes and passersby in their vehicles, according to authorities in the northwestern New Mexico town of Farmington.

In all, Beau Wilson shot nine people Monday morning before four Farmington police officers fatally shot him, police officials said at a Tuesday news conference.

Gwendolyn Schofield, 98, and daughter Melody Ivie, 73, were killed in their vehicle and Shirley Volta, 79, who also was shot in a car, died at a hospital, according to authorities.

Farmington Police Sgt. Rachel Discenza was wounded in the exchange of fire with the assailant and New Mexico State Police officer Andreas Stamatiadas was shot as he came to the scene.

Four other wounded victims were hospitalized, but like the officers, have been released.

“The amount of violence and brutality that these innocent people faced is something that is unconscionable to me. And I don’t care what age you are. I don’t care what else is going on in your life. To kill three innocent elderly women that were just absolutely in no position to defend themselves is always going to be a tragedy,” Farmington Deputy Chief Kyle Dowdy said Tuesday.

Investigators are still working on a motive for the shooting, Dowdy said. Interviews with Wilson’s family indicated they had concerns about his mental health, but it was unknown whether Wilson had been diagnosed with any mental health issues, he added.

The shooter only had “minor infractions” as a juvenile, so he was not on the radar of authorities, the deputy chief said.

The gunman turned 18 in October 2022 and the next month purchased one of the three weapons used in the shooting, Dowdy said. The deputy chief said police believe the other weapons were legally owned by a family member and they are investigating how the shooter got them.

One of the guns was an assault-style rifle – a weapon of choice among US mass shooters in recent, high-profile massacres, including the 2012 Sandy Hook school attack and a shooting in Uvalde, Texas, nearly a year ago that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

The attack left Farmington “shaken to the core by an unthinkable incldent that robbed families of their loved ones,” Mayor Nate Duckett told reporters. It is the latest American city to experience the wider scourge of US gun violence that’s resulted in 225 mass shootings in the first 20 weeks of the year.

The shooter walked through the neighborhood in this commercial hub near the Southwest’s Four Corners and “randomly fired at whatever entered his head to shoot at,” before police fatally shot him, Police Chief Steve Hebbe said in a video statement Monday night.

“There were no schools, no churches, no individuals targeted,” he said.

Dowdy said investigators have not seen a link between the assailant and the victims, but the shooter was staying at a residence in the neighborhood.

Investigators are piecing together how the attack that left more than 150 shell casings over a “wide and complex scene” that spans more than a quarter of a mile unfolded, authorities said. The assailant fired at three vehicles and six houses, though none of the victims was in a residence.

Dowdy said investigators were still at the scene and haven’t found all the shell casings it was unclear how many of those the gunman fired.

Discenza, a patrol sergeant with 10 years at the department, was wearing body armor but was hit by a bullet in the pelvic region, police officials said.

Stamatiadas was shot while driving to the scene, officials said, and drove himself to a medical facility, according to the chief. The mayor said both have been released from the hospital.

The four civilians who were shot are no longer in the hospital, Farmington Deputy Chief Baric Crum said Tuesday,

Five people were treated at the scene for injuries such as cuts from flying glass.

The shooting was first recorded on a doorbell camera at 10:56 a.m. MT and then emergency dispatch received “hundreds” of calls for an active shooter, police said. Officers were dispatched one minute later, including three who on their way to lunch and responded without body armor.

They arrived at 11:02 and four minutes later the officers killed the gunman, according to Dowdy. Farmington officers were the only law enforcement personnel who shot at the gunman, firing 16 rounds total, officials said.

Wilson was a student at Farmington High School, which was set to have its graduation ceremony Tuesday evening.

Authorities expect to hold another news conference Wednesday.

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May 16, 2023
Texas massacre suspect’s longtime partner is accused of helping him get food, clothes and transportation while he was on the run | CNN

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Coldspring, Texas
CNN
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The longtime partner of the man accused of gunning down five people, including a 9-year-old, in a neighboring Texas home apparently helped the suspect while also cooperating with authorities – all while a massive manhunt was underway – a prosecutor said Wednesday.

The suspected gunman, Mexican national Francisco Oropesa, was caught Tuesday and faces one count of first-degree felony murder – with four more counts expected – after the mass shooting Friday night, San Jacinto County criminal district attorney Todd Dillon said. The charge could be upgraded to capital murder – a death penalty offense in Texas – a source with his office told CNN.

Oropesa’s longtime partner, Divimara Lamar Nava, faces a charge of hindering apprehension or prosecution of a known felon, a third-degree felony, online sheriff’s records show. She was booked Wednesday; It’s not clear if she has an attorney or when her court appearance will be.

“Ms. Nava appeared to be cooperating up until the time that we arrested her,” Dillon said. However, “what we believe that Ms. Nava was doing is that she was providing him with material aid and encouragement, food, clothes, and had arranged transport to this house.”

Nava was arrested at the same Montgomery County location where Oropesa was found Tuesday evening hidden in a closet under a pile of laundry, according to case records and San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers. Law enforcement had tracked her to the home, associated with a relative of Oropesa, a law enforcement source told CNN, about a 20-minute drive west of where the shooting unfolded in Cleveland, northwest of Houston.

The district attorney, like other officials, has referred to Nava as the suspected killer’s “wife,” though public records suggest she is not married. “I don’t know if it’s common-law (marriage), or they’ve actually in fact been married,” Dillon said. “But they were living together as husband and wife.”

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A man suspected of assisting Oropesa also is in custody in the San Jacinto County jail, the district attorney said. He’s being held on a possession of marijuana charge, and “we expect there to be more charges filed,” Dillon said.

“Several arrests” have been made in connection with the slayings, and “others are hinging on what’s going on right now,” Chief Deputy Tim Kean of the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday morning. Fewer than five people have been arrested beyond Oropesa, he said.

The massacre is among more than 180 US mass shootings this year.

The manhunt had stretched from the US South into Mexico.

Oropesa, 38, is accused of gunning down five people Friday night after he was asked to stop firing his rifle outside near his neighbor’s home.

Wilson Garcia, whose wife and son were killed, and two others had asked Oropesa to shoot on the other side of his property because the gunfire was waking Garcia’s baby, he told CNN. The suspect refused and soon unleashed gunfire into the home where Garcia’s family and friends were gathered, he said.

The victims – all Honduran nationals – have been identified as Garcia’s wife, Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25, and her son Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman, 9; Diana Velázquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31, and José Jonathan Cásarez, 18.

Authorities are waiting to learn whether the mass shooting weapon has been recovered. “As of now, we may have the weapon, but we have to wait for ballistics (testing),” Kean said at a news conference.

Authorities now have 90 days to indict Oropesa, and the Mexican consulate will be formally notified Wednesday of his circumstances, a law enforcement source involved said.

At least four times since 2009, Oropesa had entered the US unlawfully and been deported, according to an ICE source. An immigration judge first removed him in March 2009 before he was deported again in September 2009, January 2012 and July 2016, the source said.

It’s unclear how long Oropesa had been in the US before last week’s attack. He and Nava have been together for about 12 years and share a home and a child, a source who knows the family told CNN, though they are not legally married. The woman in the Montgomery County booking photo is Nava, the source confirmed.

In the end, it was information submitted through the FBI’s tip line that pointed investigators to the home where Oropesa was discovered, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jimmy Paul said Tuesday night.

Federal, state and local authorities had devoted considerable resources to hunting for the fugitive, including a collective $80,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and more than 200 law enforcement officers on the case, officials have said.

Officials’ efforts may have been stymied by a lack of trust in law enforcement. Some Latinos, particularly immigrants, fear contact with law enforcement could lead to questions about their immigration status and lead to deportation, they told CNN.

After initial leads on Oropesa went cold over the weekend, authorities pleaded for tips – which eventually came in from Texas, Wyoming, Florida, Maryland and Oklahoma, the sheriff said.

“We just want to thank the person who had the courage and bravery to call in the suspect’s location,” Paul said.

It’s not clear if law enforcement had tracked Oropesa’s wife to the home before or after the tip was sent to the FBI.

Once they had zeroed in on the house, members of the Texas Department of Public Safety, US Marshals Service and US Customs and Border Patrol’s tactical unit, known as BORTAC, entered the home and brought the suspect into custody, an FBI Houston spokesperson said.

Evelyn Echeverria, 16, had been lying in bed around 6 p.m. when she heard helicopters flying above her home, she told CNN.

“I headed out and saw a lot of cops and maybe 20 minutes later they came out with him,” said Echeverria, who took video of the apprehension. “He came out handcuffed. He looked like he was cooperating with the officers.”

Officers led Oropesa through the yard of a house, then gathered around him as he sat in a law enforcement vehicle, witness videos show.

“We are so happy,” Jefrinson Rivera, the partner of Velázquez Alvarado, told CNN of the arrest.

The sheriff’s office said the home where Oropesa was found is in the small city of Cut and Shoot, while the FBI Houston office tweeted it is in adjacent Conroe. The BORTAC unit has played a key role in several high-profile US operations, including the mass shooting last year at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where its members fatally shot that gunman, authorities said.

More than a dozen family members and friends were gathered Friday in the Cleveland home, said Garcia, whose wife and son were killed. They were helping his wife get ready for a church event, he said.

But their evening was disturbed by gunshots fired by Oropesa outside his home next door, the father said. The shots were waking up Garcia’s baby and making him cry.

About 10 to 20 minutes before the suspected gunman opened fire, Garcia and two others walked over to Oropesa to ask that he instead shoot on the other side of his property, he said.

The suspect refused, and Garcia said he would call police.

“We walked inside and my wife was talking to the police, and we called five times because he was being more threatening,” Garcia recalled.

At some point, they watched as Oropesa walked off his property and cocked his gun, Garcia said. Concerned, he told his wife to come inside the house.

“My wife said, ‘You go inside, I don’t think he will fire at me because I’m a woman, I’ll stay here at the door.’”

Soon after, the gunman charged into Garcia’s home, first shooting his wife, Argentina Guzman, in the doorway before killing three other adults and Garcia’s son Daniel, the grieving father said.

“One of the people who died saw when my wife fell to the ground,” Garcia told CNN. “She told me to throw myself out the window because my children were already without a mother. So one of us had to stay alive to take care of them. She was the person who helped me jump out the window.”

The victims were shot “almost execution style” at close range above the neck, Capers told local media.

Officers responded to the scene as fast as they could, the sheriff said. But his small force covers a large county, he said, and the home is about 15 minutes outside town.

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May 3, 2023
Suicide note and weapons found when police searched the Nashville shooter’s home, warrant shows | CNN

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Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 to connect with a trained counselor or visit 988lifeline.org.

CNN
—

Investigators found a suicide note when they executed a search warrant at the home of the shooter who killed six people at a Nashville school last week, along with more weapons and ammunition, according to an inventory of items seized.

The search warrant and the list of items found were released Tuesday, just over a week after the shooter, former student Audrey Hale, opened fire at The Covenant School, killing three 9-year-olds and three adults.

The warrant, executed the same day as the shooting, shows authorities also found several Covenant School yearbooks and a school photo, in addition to the shooter’s journals. Some of the journals are described as being related to “school shootings; firearm courses,” the list indicates.

A total of 47 items were seized, according to the list.

Hale, 28, fired 152 rounds in the attack, which was planned “over a period of months,” police said in a news release Monday. Hale “considered the actions of other mass murderers,” that release said, and “acted totally alone.”

Hale, who police said was under care for an emotional disorder, had legally purchased seven guns and hidden them at home, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake previously said.

Hale was armed with three guns during the attack, which ended after Nashville officers arrived on the scene and confronted the shooter.

Two officers opened fire – a moment captured in bodycam footage later released by police – and killed Hale at 10:27 a.m., 14 minutes after the shooter entered the private Christian school, according to Nashville police spokesperson Don Aaron.

Police continue to work to determine a motive for the attack, but they said previously that writings left behind by Hale – which continue to be reviewed by police and the FBI – made clear it was “calculated and planned.”

Hale targeted the school and Covenant Presbyterian Church, to which the school is attached, police said, but it’s believed the victims were fired upon at random.

Those victims were Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, all 9 years old, as well as school custodian Mike Hill, 61, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, and Katherine Koonce, 60, who was head of the school.

Four police officers who responded to the shooting described to reporters Tuesday how their training guided them as they hunted the shooter.

Officer Rex Engelbert praised two staff members “who stayed on the scene and didn’t run.” They gave him the concise information he needed, as well as “the exact key I needed to enter the building,” he said.

Engelbert and Detective Sgt. Jeff Mathes became part of a team that cleared classrooms and searched for the shooter. When they reached the first-floor atrium they took gunfire from the shooter.

“We were still unsure where that was, but our job is to go towards it, so we went through a pair of double doors,” Mathes said.

Detective Michael Collazo, who heard the shooter might be on the second floor, joined the group.

“At some point around that time frame is when we started hearing the first shots … that’s when everything kind of kicked into overdrive for us, “Collazo said.

After they went up a stairwell and down a second-floor hallway, they encountered a victim on the floor.

“Doing what our training tells us to do in those situations and following the stimulus, all of us stepped over a victim. To this day, don’t know how I did that morally, but training is what kicked in,” Mathes said.

Smoke was filling the building and the fire alarm was blaring, Collazo said. Then there was a gunshot to their right.

He asked Engelbert, who had a scope on his rifle, to lead the team toward the gunshot. Engelbert said things were unfolding “very similar to the training we receive.”

“We then proceeded continually towards the sounds of gunfire and then once we got near the shooter, the shooter was neutralized,” Mathes said.

The school shooting – the deadliest since 21 people, including 19 children, were killed at a school in Uvalde, Texas, last May – renewed debate over the scourge of American gun violence, access to firearms and school safety, a fight that spilled over into the state legislature this week.

Tennessee House Republicans on Monday took steps toward expelling three Democratic state representatives who participated in protests at the state Capitol last Thursday calling for more gun control in the wake of the deadly mass shooting.

A vote on whether to expel the three members – Reps. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis – is slated for Thursday, according to The Tennessean.

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April 4, 2023
As more details emerge about how the Nashville school shooting unfolded, expert says the quick thinking of teachers saved lives | CNN

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CNN
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As more details emerge about how a deadly mass shooting unfolded inside a private Christian school in Nashville, a former police officer who provided active shooter training at the school said the quick-thinking actions of teachers who locked down classrooms helped save lives.

The shooter who got into The Covenant School on Monday fired multiple rounds into several classrooms but didn’t hit any students inside the classrooms, “because the teachers knew exactly what to do, how to fortify their doors and where to place their children in those rooms,” security consultant Brink Fidler told CNN.

“Their ability to execute literally flawlessly under that amount of stress while somebody trying to murder them and their children, that is what made the difference here,” Fidler said.

“These teachers are the reason those kids went home to their families,” he added.

Six people were killed in the Monday morning school shooting. They were three 9-year-old students: Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs. The adults killed were Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher; Katherine Koonce, the 60-year-old head of the school; and Mike Hill, a 61-year-old custodian, police said.

All of the victims who were struck by gunfire had been in an open area or hallway, said Fidler, who did a walk-through of the school with officials Wednesday.

“The only victims this shooter was able to get to were victims that were stuck in some sort of open area or hallway,” Fidler said. “Several were able to evarocuate safely. The ones that couldn’t do that safely did exactly what they were taught and trained to do.”

While the shooter had targeted the school, it’s believed the victims were fired upon at random, police have said.

Also credited with saving lives are the officers who rushed into the school and fatally shot the attacker, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, ending the 14 minutes of terror that unfolded at the school.

“We had heroic officers that went in harm’s way to stop this and we could have been talking about more tragedy than what we are,” Drake told CNN Wednesday.

The law enforcement response in Nashville stands in contrast with the response in Uvalde, Texas, where there was a delay of more than an hour before authorities confronted and killed the gunman. The attack in Uvalde left 21 people dead.

Monday’s school shooting in Nashville was the deadliest US school shooting since last May’s massacre in Uvalde. It also marked the 19th shooting at a school or university in just the past three months that left at least one person wounded, a CNN count shows.

A Nashville city councilman also said a witness told him Koonce, the head of The Covenant School, spent her last moments trying to protect the children in her care.

“The witness said Katherine Koonce was on a Zoom call, heard the shots and abruptly ended the Zoom call and left the office. The assumption from there is that she headed towards the shooter,” Councilman Russ Pulley said. He did not identify the witness.

Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said he can’t confirm how Koonce died but said, “I do know she was in the hallway by herself. There was a confrontation, I’m sure. You can tell the way she is lying in the hallway.”

Fidler said that Koonce had been adamant about training school staff on how to respond during an active shooter situation.

“She understood the severity of the topic and the severity of the teachers needing to have the knowledge of what to do in that situation,” he said.

Koonce and the other victims were honored at a citywide vigil in Nashville Wednesday, where residents came together to pray and grieve.

“It’s such a tragedy and felt so deeply by everyone here,” Nashville resident Eliza Hughes said. “Nashville is a close tight-knit community. We definitely feel the tragedy. It’s an awful situation.”

After the shooting, police found that Hale had detailed maps of The Covenant School – which the shooter had attended as a child – and “quite a bit” of writings related to the shooting, according to the police chief.

The FBI, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and police have been combing through the maps and writings Hale left, including looking at a notebook, Drake said.

Authorities have called the attack “calculated,” with Drake saying Wednesday that the maps “did have a display of entry into the school, a route that would be taken for whatever was going to be carried out.”

The shooter is also believed to have had weapons training and had arrived at the school heavily armed and prepared for a confrontation with law enforcement, police have said.

But as details of the pre-planning are uncovered, it’s still unclear what motivated the attack. Drake said police have met with the school and found no indication that Hale had any problems while attending The Covenant.

Hale had been under care for an emotional disorder and legally bought seven guns in the past three years, but they were kept hidden from Hale’s parents, Drake said. Three of the weapons, including an AR-15 rifle, were used in the attack Monday.

Tennessee does not have a “red flag” law that would allow a judge to temporarily seize guns from someone who is believed to be a threat to themselves or others.

The police chief said law enforcement was not contacted about the shooter previously, and Hale was never committed to an institution.

Hale’s childhood friend, Averianna Patton, told CNN on Tuesday the killer sent her disturbing messages minutes before the attack, saying “I’m planning to die today” and it would be on the news.

Patton called the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office in Nashville but was on hold for “maybe like 7 minutes,” she said. By then, the shooting had already started.

Asked about the messages, Drake told CNN, “If their timeline was accurate, the actual call came in after the officer had already arrived on the scene. So, it plays no bearing on that.”

“The moment we got the call, we responded immediately to the scene. Officers pulled up, were taking gunfire, pulled the gun out, went inside, did not wait,” Drake said.

The shooter entered the school by firing at glass doors and climbing through to get inside, surveillance video shows. The first call about the shooting came in at 10:13 a.m., and police arrived on scene at 10:24 a.m., according to the police chief.

Body-camera footage from the first responding officers shows them rushing in and clearing classrooms before racing to the second floor of the school, where an officer armed with an assault-style rifle shot the assailant multiple times. The shooter was dead at 10:27 a.m., police said.

Police have referred to Hale as a “female shooter,” and later said Hale was transgender. Hale used male pronouns on a social media profile, a spokesperson told CNN when asked to clarify.

Nashville residents came together for a citywide vigil Wednesday to mourn the victims, pray and sharex in the heartache.

First lady Jill Biden was in attendance, as was singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow, who performed her song “I Shall Believe” to the grieving crowd.

“Nashville has had its worst today,” Mayor John Cooper told the crowd. “Our heart is broken. Our city united as we mourn together.”

The police chief also addressed the community, saying that a school shooting like the one officers faced at The Covenant School on Monday is a moment officers have trained for but hoped would never come.

“Our police officers have cried and are crying with Nashville and the world,” Drake said.

As the community grieves, families are mourning loved ones lost in the shooting.

William, one of the children killed, had an “unflappable spirit,” friends of the Kinney family shared on GoFundMe.

Hallie’s aunt Kara Arnold said the 9-year-old had “a love for life that kept her smiling and running and jumping and playing and always on the go.”

Evelyn’s family called her “a shining light in this world.”

The family of Hill, a father of seven children and grandfather to 14, remembered his love for cooking and spending time with his family.

“Violence has visited our city and brought heartache and pain. In the midst of sorrow, we are yet looking for hope,” said Tennessee Representative Rev. Harold M. Love, Jr. as he ended the vigil with a prayer.

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March 29, 2023
Covenant School shooter was under care for emotional disorder and hid guns at home, police say | CNN

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Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence.

CNN
—

The 28-year-old who killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville was under care for an emotional disorder and had legally bought seven firearms that were hidden at home, Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Tuesday.

The parents of the shooter, Audrey Hale, spoke to police and said they knew Hale had bought and sold one weapon and believed that was the extent of it.

“The parents felt (Hale) should not own weapons,” the chief said.

On Monday morning, Hale left home with a red bag, and the parents asked what was inside but were dismissed, Drake said.

Three of the weapons were used in the attack Monday. Police also said Tuesday they did not know a motive.

The shooter targeted the school and church in the attack but did not specifically target any of the six people killed, police spokesman Don Aaron said. He also said Hale’s writings mentioned a mall near the school as another possible target.

Live updates: Nashville Covenant School shooting

The news conference came a day after Hale, a former student at the Covenant School, stormed into the elementary school and killed six people before being fatally shot by responding police officers.

The attack was the 19th shooting at an American school or university in 2023 in which at least one person was wounded, according to a CNN tally, and the deadliest since the May attack in Uvalde, Texas, left 21 dead. There have been 42 K-12 school shootings since Uvalde.

The victims included three 9-year-old students: Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, the daughter of lead church pastor Chad Scruggs. Also killed were Cynthia Peak, 61, believed to be a substitute teacher; Katherine Koonce, the 60-year-old head of the school; and Mike Hill, a 61-year-old custodian, police said.

Earlier Tuesday, police released body-camera footage from the two officers who rushed into the Covenant School on Monday and fatally shot the mass shooter.

The footage is from the body-worn cameras of officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo, who police said fatally shot the attacker on Monday at 10:27 a.m. The videos show a group of five officers entered the school amid wailing fire alarms and immediately went into several rooms to look for the suspect.

They heard gunfire on the second floor and so hustled up the stairs as the bangs grew louder, the video shows. The officers approached the sound of gunfire and Engelbert, armed with an assault-style rifle, rounded a corner and fired multiple times at a person near a large window, who dropped to the ground, the video shows.

Collazo then pushed forward and appeared to shoot the person on the ground four times with a handgun, yelling “Stop moving!” The officers finally approached the person, moved a gun away and then radioed “Suspect down! Suspect down!”

The video adds further insight into the timeline of the shooting and the police response. The first 911 call about the shooting came in at 10:13 a.m., and the shooter was killed 14 minutes later, according to police. The bodycam footage of Engelbert entering the school and shooting the attacker lasts about three to four minutes.

The Covenant school is a private Christian school educating about 200 students from Pre-K through 6th grade. The school is a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, its website states.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper told CNN the swift police response prevented further disaster.

“It could have been worse without this great response,” the mayor of the police response. “This was very planned and numerous sites were investigated.”

The police chief similarly praised the response as swift.

“I was hoping this day would never ever come here in the city. But we will never wait to make entry and to go in and to stop a threat especially when it deals with our children,” Drake said in a Monday news conference.

Police said the shooting was targeted, closely planned and outlined in documents from the shooter.

Hale left writings pertaining to the shooting and had scouted a second possible attack location in Nashville, “but because of a threat assessment by the suspect – there’s too much security – decided not to,” Drake said on Monday.

The shooter left behind “drawn out” maps of the school detailing “how this was all going to take place,” he added.

The writings revealed the attack at the Christian school “was calculated and planned,” police said. The shooter was “someone that had multiple rounds of ammunition, prepared for confrontation with law enforcement, prepared to do more harm than was actually done,” Drake said.

Three weapons – an AR-15, a Kel-Tec SUB 2000, and a handgun – were found at the school, he said. A search warrant executed at Hale’s home led to the seizure of a sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun and other evidence, according to police.

“They found a lot of documents. This was clearly planned,” Mayor Cooper said. “There was a lot of ammunition. There were guns.”

Police have referred to Hale as a “female shooter,” and at an evening news conference added Hale was transgender. Hale used male pronouns on a social media profile, a spokesperson told CNN when asked to clarify.

Hale graduated from Nossi College of Art & Design in Nashville last year, the president of the school confirmed to CNN. Hale worked as a freelance graphic designer and a part-time grocery shopper, a LinkedIn profile says.

Former teammate of Nashville school shooter got unusual Instagram messages before rampage

Information from police and from the shooter’s childhood friend helped illuminate a timeline of the deadly attack.

Just before 10 a.m. Monday, the shooter sent an ominous message to a childhood friend, the friend told CNN on Tuesday. In an Instagram message to Averianna Patton, a Nashville radio host, just before 10 a.m. Monday, the shooter said “I’m planning to die today” and that it would be on the news.

“One day this will make more sense,” Hale wrote. “I’ve left more than enough evidence behind. But something bad is about to happen.”

Patton told CNN’s Don Lemon she was the shooter’s childhood basketball teammate and “knew her well when we were kids” but hadn’t spoken in years and is unsure why she received the message. Disturbed by its content, she called a suicide prevention line and the Nashville Davidson County Sheriff’s Office at 10:13 a.m.

At that very minute, police in Nashville also got a 911 call of an active shooter inside Covenant School and rushed there.

Armed with three firearms, the shooter got into the school by firing through glass doors and climbing through to get inside, surveillance video released by Metro Nashville Police shows. Pointing an assault-style weapon, the shooter walked through the school’s hallways, the video shows.

As the first five officers arrived, they heard gunfire from the second floor. The shooter was “firing through a window at arriving police cars,” police said in the news release.

Police went upstairs, where two officers opened fire, killing the shooter at 10:27 a.m., police spokesperson Don Aaron said.

After the shooter was dead, children were evacuated from the school and taken in buses to be reunited with their families. They held hands and walked in a line out of the school, where community members embraced, video showed.

“This school prepared for this with active shooter training for a reason,” Nashville Metropolitan Councilman Russ Pulley told CNN. “We don’t like to think that this is ever going to happen to us. But experience has taught us that we need to be prepared because in this day and time it is the reality of where we are.”

Patton, meanwhile, had “called Nashville’s non-emergency line at 10:14 a.m. and was on hold for nearly seven minutes before speaking with someone who said that they would send an officer to my home,” she told CNN affiliate WTVF. An officer did not come to her home until about 3:30 p.m., she said.

Two Covenant School employees are among the victims of Monday’s mass shooting, according to the school.

Katherine Koonce was identified as the head of the school, its website says. She attended Vanderbilt University and Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville and got her master’s degree from Georgia State University.

Sissy Goff, one of Koonce’s friends, went to the reunification center after the shooting and suspected something was wrong when she didn’t see Koonce there.

“Knowing her, she’s so kind and strong and such a voice of reason and just security for people that she would have been there in front handling everything, so I had a feeling,” Goff said.

She said Koonce was a calming influence and even got a dog named “Covie” who greeted students before and after school.

“Parents are so anxious, kids are so anxious, and Katherine had such a centering voice for people,” Goff said.

Mike Hill was identified in the staff section of the Covenant Presbyterian Church’s website as facilities/kitchen staff. Hill, 61, was a custodian at the school, per police. A friend confirmed his image to CNN.

Cynthia Peak, 61, was believed to be a substitute teacher, police said Monday.

The family of Evelyn Dieckhaus, one of the 9-year-old victims, provided a statement to CNN affiliate KMOV.

“Our hearts are completely broken. We cannot believe this has happened. Evelyn was a shining light in this world. We appreciate all the love and support but ask for space as we grieve,” the family said.

The Covenant School issued a statement Monday night grieving the shooting.

“Our community is heartbroken. We are grieving tremendous loss and are in shock coming out of the terror that shattered our school and church. We are focused on loving our students, our families, our faculty and staff and beginning the process of healing,” the school said in a statement.

“Law enforcement is conducting its investigation, and while we understand there is a lot of interest and there will be a lot of discussion about and speculation surrounding what happened, we will continue to prioritize the well-being of our community.

“We appreciate the outpouring of support we have received, and we are tremendously grateful to the first responders who acted quickly to protect our students, faculty and staff. We ask for privacy as our community grapples with this terrible tragedy – for our students, parents, faculty and staff,” the statement said.

Cooper, the Nashville mayor, said he is “overwhelmed at the thought of the loss of these families, of the future lost by these children and their families.”

“The leading cause of kids’ death now is guns and gunfire and that is unacceptable,” Cooper said.

A recent study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics in December backs that point, finding that homicide is a leading cause of death for children in the United States and the overall rate has increased an average of 4.3% each year for nearly a decade.

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March 28, 2023
‘So much blood’: Medics tell what they saw and did after Uvalde massacre | CNN

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Chilling details of the chaotic and bloody aftermath of the Uvalde school massacre show how emergency medics desperately treated multiple victims wherever they could and with whatever equipment they had, according to never-before-heard interviews.

Some came from off-duty or far away to back up their colleagues sent to Robb Elementary School, where classrooms had become kill zones but there were still lives to be saved.

There was the state trooper with emergency medical certification who always carried five chest seals with him, never imagining he would ever need them all at once; the local EMT who crouched behind a wall as gunshots rang out and was soon treating three children at the same time; and her off-duty colleague who found herself caring for her son’s classmates, not knowing if her own boy was alive.

Amanda Shoemake was on the first Uvalde EMS ambulance to arrive at the school last May 24, she told an investigator from the Texas Department of Public Safety. But with law enforcement officers waiting for 77 minutes to challenge the shooter, she spent time trying to direct traffic to maintain a lane for ambulances to get through once victims started coming out, she said, according to investigation records obtained by CNN.

“We were just waiting for what felt like a while. And then somebody … came and they were like, ‘OK, we need EMS now,’” she said in the interview, part of the DPS investigation into the failed response to the school shooting, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed. At least one teacher and two children were alive when officers finally stormed the classrooms, but they died later.

As Shoemake and colleagues reached the school building, they were told the shooter had not yet been found and could be in the ceiling, she recounted, saying how they sheltered behind a brick wall as the shooter was confronted.

“We just squatted down there and waited there until the shooting stopped,” she said. “And then after some time they brought out the first kid that was an obvious DOA.”

DPS trooper Zach Springer was one of the hundreds of law enforcement officers from across southwest Texas who responded to Robb when alerts went out for reinforcements. He had become certified as an EMT a few months earlier, he told the Texas Ranger who interviewed him.

“I made a conscious decision not to bring my rifle,” he said he thought as he drove up. “I knew there were so many people up there, they’re not going to need rifles, they’re going to need med gear.”

Springer entered the school and started getting a triage area ready at the end of the hallway where armed officers from the school force, local police department, sheriff’s office, state police and federal agencies were lined up. While commanders like then school police chief Pete Arredondo, then acting city police chief Mariano Pargas and Sheriff Ruben Nolasco have given various statements about whether they knew children were hurt and needed rescue, medics from many agencies prepared for victims.

“I set up as best I could,” he said. “I put tourniquets, gauze, Israeli bandages, compression bandages, hemostatic gauze. I was like, ‘I got everything, I think.’ … I had five chest seals, which is ridiculous in my opinion, like I’ve made fun of myself – when am I ever going to need five chest seals?”

He heard the breach and then started seeing children brought out amid the smoke from the brief but intense firefight, he said.

He went to help a Border Patrol medic treating a girl shot through the chest. He said he started checking her legs for injuries when he heard colleagues ask for a chest seal. In the chaos of the response, all had been taken.

Springer said they covered the girl’s wounds with gauze, got her onto a backboard and he repeatedly told the others to secure her head as they moved her, though he later believed the young victim was too small for the carrier.

I can still hear her voice

EMT Kathlene Torres after treating Mayah Zamora

“I don’t think that they secured her head because she wasn’t tall enough for her head to be secured,” he said. And while the girl was thought to be alive when they pulled her from the classroom, she did not survive, he said.

When he ran back in, the hallway lined with posters celebrating the end of the school year had been transformed. “You could smell the iron – there was so much blood,” he said.

Back outside, Uvalde EMS Shoemake had put the first victim in her ambulance to hide him from the crowds of anxious parents frantic for information, when another child was brought out. She saw an unattended ambulance from a private company with its door open and no stretcher, she said.

“I had them put her on the floor of that ambulance and I started treating her there. Then while I was treating her, there was two more 10-year-old boys brought to me and so I put one on the bench and one in the captain’s seat.”

Shoemake’s colleagues including Kathlene Torres came to help and got the little girl onto a stretcher and into another ambulance, working to save her life as they first thought a helicopter would take her and then getting her to the hospital themselves, they said.

Torres told a DPS officer the girl was critically injured but still managed to share her name and date of birth. She was Mayah Zamora, who would spend 66 days in hospital before she could go back to her family. “I can still hear her voice,” Torres said.

At least two of the EMTs had been at Robb earlier in the day to see awards presented to their children. One of them, Virginia Vela, had watched her 4th-grader son at a 10 a.m. ceremony and then two hours later was corralled in the funeral home parking lot across the street from the school with her husband and other parents who were being held back by officers.

She told the DPS investigator that she was recognized as a local EMT and allowed into the funeral home to treat some children who had been hurt climbing through windows to get away from the school.

Photos show chaotic scene as Uvalde students escape

When she went closer to the school to help the other EMTs, she saw the first victim brought out, a boy who was dead, she said.

“I thought it was my son,” she said. “Once I saw his clothes, I knew it wasn’t my son, but the fear … ran through my body.”

More children came for emergency medical treatment.

What I was thinking was ‘run buddy … get the hell away from that school, just run to the bus’

EMT Virginia Vela when she finally saw her son

“One of the kids that I had in the unit, he was shot in the shoulder. The student that I was helping up from the side of the unit, he had bullet fragments on his thigh,” she said. “And then we had another student with blown off fingers. And she was just in and out. We were trying to get her oxygen and trying to keep her alive. And I realized those were my son’s classmates and my son was not coming out.”

Vela opened the ambulance to see if more children were being brought to them. And finally, she saw her boy running from the school.

“I didn’t even run to him. I didn’t go get him. What I was thinking was ‘run buddy … get the hell away from that school, just run to the bus,’” she said. “I grabbed my phone, and I called my husband and my husband’s like, ‘I see him, I see him, he’s getting onto the bus, he’s OK.’ And I said, ‘OK, but I’ve got to stay here with these students.’ And I hung up and I continued to do my job.”

Vela told DPS she remembered a little more of the day after she knew her son was safe, but it was still a blur as she worked with Shoemake and the others, writing a child’s vitals on their arms and getting them on their way – load and go, load and go.

And once the emergency work was done, she had an important question.

“I asked my partner, ‘Did I freeze? Did I even help you?’ She goes, ‘Yes, girl. You were like jumping from unit to unit, helping everybody that was coming out,’” Vela said. “And I was like, I need to know this. I need to know that I continued doing my job.”

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March 18, 2023
Vanderbilt University apologizes for using ChatGPT to write mass-shooting email | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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Vanderbilt University’s Peabody School has apologized to students for using artificial intelligence to write an email about a mass shooting at another university, saying the distribution of the note did not follow the school’s usual processes.

Last Friday, the Tennessee-based school emailed its student body to address the tragedy at Michigan State that killed three students and injured five more people: “The recent Michigan shootings are a tragic reminder of the importance of taking care of each other, particularly in the context of creating inclusive environments,” reads the letter in part, as first reported by the Vanderbilt Hustler, a student newspaper.

At the end of the school’s email was a surprising line: “Paraphrase from OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI language model, personal communication, February 15, 2023,” read a parenthetical in smaller font.

Following an outcry from students about the use of AI to write a letter about community during human tragedy, the associate dean of Peabody sent an apology note the next day. Nicole Joseph, one of the three signatories of the original letter, called using ChatGPT “poor judgment,” according to the Vanderbilt Hustler.

On Tuesday, Vanderbilt said Joseph and assistant dean Hasina Mohyuddin, another signer of the email, have stepped back from their responsibilities while the school conducts a complete review.

“The development and distribution of the initial email did not follow Peabody’s normal processes providing for multiple layers of review before being sent. The university’s administrators, including myself, were unaware of the email before it was sent,” according to a statement Tuesday to CNN from Camilla P. Benbow, the Patricia and Rodes Hart Dean of Education and Human Development.

Since it was made available in late November, ChatGPT has been used to generate original essays, stories and song lyrics in response to user prompts. It has drafted research paper abstracts that fooled some scientists. Some CEOs have even used it to write emails or do accounting work.

While it has gained traction among users, it has also raised some concerns, including about inaccuracies, its potential to perpetuate biases and spread misinformation, and the ability to help students cheat.

Vanderbilt’s letter also included reference to “recent Michigan shootings,” though only one occurred.

“As dean of the college, I remain personally saddened by the loss of life and injuries at Michigan State, which I know have affected members of our own community,” Benbow said. “I am also deeply troubled that a communication from my administration so missed the crucial need for personal connection and empathy during a time of tragedy.”

Rachael Perrotta, editor in chief of the Vanderbilt student newspaper, said that students told her “they are outraged about this situation and confused as to what prompted administrators to turn to ChatGPT to write their message about the Michigan State shooting.”

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February 24, 2023
NBA star James Harden speaks with hospitalized Michigan State student paralyzed in mass shooting | CNN

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CNN
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Philadelphia 76ers star James Harden spoke via video call Wednesday with John Hao, a fan of Harden’s and one of the Michigan State University students wounded in a mass shooting on campus last week.

A video shared with CNN by Harden’s management team shows the NBA star giving words of encouragement to Hao, who remains hospitalized.

“Everything will work itself out. You’re strong,” Harden says during their conversation. “Keep pushing and keep fighting.”

Hao was among those shot at Michigan State’s campus in East Lansing on February 13. The shooting killed three students and wounded at least five others, officials said.

A bullet severed Hao’s spinal cord and critically injured his lungs, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down, according to a verified GoFundMe started for his family.

Hao is pursuing a career in sports management, and Harden is his favorite basketball player, a representative of Hao’s family told CNN. Gifts from Harden to Hao include a pair of game-worn sneakers.

CNN has sought comment from Harden’s agent and the 76ers.

Classes and athletic events have resumed at Michigan State. In its first home game since the shooting, the men’s basketball team claimed an emotional victory over the Indiana Hoosiers on Tuesday, as the crowd wore white to honor those lost or wounded.

The US has had more than 80 mass shootings in 2023 as of Thursday, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that defines mass shootings as those in which four or more people were shot, not including the shooter.

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February 24, 2023
Michigan State to ease back into classes and athletics as students and staff continue to grapple with horror of mass shooting | CNN

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CNN
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After the Michigan State University community was paralyzed by a horrific mass shooting that killed three students, injured five others and halted campus activity, the school will begin to resume athletic and academic life, as many are still struggling to make sense of the tragedy.

Athletic events, some of which were postponed or canceled due to the shooting, are scheduled to resume this weekend and classes will recommence Monday, university officials announced.

“Athletics can be a rallying point for a community in need of healing, a fact many of our student-athletes have mentioned to me,” MSU Vice President and Director of Athletics Alan Haller said in a statement Thursday. “The opportunity to represent our entire community has never felt greater.”

Student athletes may opt out of participating, Haller said, explaining, “there are some who aren’t ready to return to athletic events. Those feelings are incredibly valid.”

All classes were canceled through Sunday and other activities suspended for at least two days after a 43-year-old gunman opened fire Monday evening on two parts of the campus. As they fled the deadly rampage, students leapt from smashed windows and ran to dorms as others sheltered in place for hours. Some students found themselves reliving a familiar nightmare, as they had survived another mass shooting just over a year ago.

The five injured students are “showing signs of improvement,” MSU interim President Teresa Woodruff said Thursday. One has been moved from critical to stable condition and the others remain in critical condition, Board of Trustees chair Rema Vassar said.

Berkey Hall, where Arielle Anderson and Alexandria Verner were killed, will remain closed for the rest of the semester, Woodruff said. The nearby student union, where Brian Fraser was killed, is also closed, she said, noting its reopening is still being evaluated.

But even as the campus transitions back to normal operations, community members like professor Marco Díaz-Muñoz are still working through the pain and shock of Monday night’s tragedy.

Díaz-Muñoz doesn’t want to return to Berkey Hall, where the gunman entered through the back door of his classroom and began firing at his Cuban literature students, injuring several and killing Anderson and Verner, he told CNN’s Miguel Marquez.

“It was like seeing something not human standing there,” he said, describing the masked gunman. After the shooter left the classroom, Díaz-Muñoz threw himself against one of the doors to block him from possibly reentering.

Some students were able to escape through the windows as others stayed behind to help the injured, using their hands to clamp down on the wounds, he said. “I’ve never seen so much blood.”

Two girls, who he later learned were Anderson and Verner, seemed to be in the worst condition and were “lying there in these pools of blood,” the professor said. He believes most or all of the injured students were in his classroom.

“I feel like I want to not remember these scenes and not have to go teach that class,” he said. “But there is another part of me that feels a great need, a strong need to see my students again … to see that they are alive, I need to see their faces.”

He is trying to write his students a letter, but is struggling with what to say.

The gunman, Anthony Dwayne McRae, was found by police about 4 miles from campus later Monday night after a tipster recognized his photo in the news and alerted authorities, according to authorities.

As police approached him, McRae shot and killed himself, said Michigan State Police Lt. Rene Gonzalez.

On his body and in his backpack, investigators found two legally purchased but unregistered 9mm handguns, several loaded magazines and dozens of loose rounds of ammunition, authorities said.

“He did purchase the gun legally. He was allowed to purchase the gun. There was nothing in place to prohibit him from purchasing a firearm,” MSU police interim Deputy Chief Chris Rozman said Thursday.

McRae was arrested in 2019 and charged with the felony of carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, and later pleaded guilty to a lower misdemeanor charge of possession of a loaded firearm as part of a plea deal, court records show.

But the lesser charge, negotiated down by a prosecutor, did not prohibit him from purchasing firearms in the future, Lansing Police Chief Ellery Sosebee said Thursday.

Investigators also found a note on McRae that listed other potential attack targets, MSU police confirmed. Two schools in New Jersey’s Ewing Township were on the list, police there have said, adding that there is no threat to the schools.

Other possible targets detailed in the note included a warehouse, an employment agency, a discount store, a church and a fast food restaurant, law enforcement officials who have access to the note told CNN.

“We found that he had had contact with some of those places,” Gonzalez said Thursday. He confirmed McRae had once worked at the warehouse, belonging to the Meijer supermarket chain.

“In a couple of other businesses, it appears that he’d had some issues with the employees there, where he was asked to leave,” Gonzalez said. It looked like McRae’s possible motive was that “he just felt slighted, and that’s kind of what the note indicated,” he said.

The businesses listed have been notified by law enforcement and told that the gunman is dead, law enforcement officials said.

The three students killed, two of whom are from the same Michigan hometown, included an aspiring doctor, a beloved fraternity president and a biology student from a close-knit town.

Fraser, 20, was the president of the Michigan Beta Chapter of Phi Delta Theta, the fraternity said in a statement.

“As the leader of his chapter, Brian was a great friend to his Phi Delt brothers, the Greek community at Michigan State, and those he interacted with on campus,” the statement said.

The fraternity and his parents have created a memorial scholarship in Fraser’s honor, in the hopes that recipients “will embody Brian’s charismatic, contagious smile and caring, loyal energy,” Phi Delta Theta announced.

Fraser, a sophomore, and Anderson, a junior, were both from the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

Anderson, 19, was a “remarkable student” studying to become a doctor, her aunt Chandra Davis said in an Instagram post.

“She was working diligently to graduate from Michigan State University early to achieve her goals as quickly as possible,” the family said in a statement. “As an Angel here on Earth, Arielle was sweet and loving with an infectious smile that was very contagious. We are absolutely devastated by this heinous act of violence upon her and many other innocent victims.”

Verner, 20, was a junior at the university studying biology, according to The State News.

“Her kindness was on display every single second you were around her,” family friend Billy Shellenbarger told CNN. He has known Alexandria, or Alex, as he called her, since she was in kindergarten.

In her hometown of Clawson, Michigan, Verner was a student leader and fantastic three-sport athlete in volleyball, basketball and softball, said Shellenbarger, who is the Clawson Public Schools Superintendent.

“To lose her on this planet, let alone our small community, it’s tough,” he said. “And it’s going to take a while to recover, but to have known her for the duration of time that we all have, once again, is a gift to all of us.”

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February 17, 2023
Mass shooting at Michigan State University leaves 3 dead and 5 injured | CNN

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A mass shooting at Michigan State University left three people dead and five others injured Monday evening, triggering an hourslong manhunt and shelter-in-place orders before the suspect died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.

The gunman opened fire at two campus locations, turning the sprawling university where over 19,000 students live into a crime scene and forcing terrified students to hide as hundreds of officers in tactical gear swarmed the school – something that has become a familiar occurrence for many US communities.

It’s unclear what motivated the killings at MSU.

The gunman was a 43-year-old man who was not affiliated with the university, Interim Deputy Chief Chris Rozman said. “We have no idea why he came to campus to do this tonight,” he added.

“I can’t even begin to imagine what that motive would be,” Rozman said. “That will obviously be part of our investigation. I know that that is going to be a question that lingers on everybody’s mind.”

There have been more mass shootings in the US than there have been days so far this year. The attack at MSU marked the 67th mass shooting in 2023, according to data from the non-profit group Gun Violence Archive. Both CNN and GVA define a mass shooting as a shooting that injured or killed four or more people, not including the shooter.

The first report of shots fired came at 8:18 p.m. ET from Berkey Hall, an academic building on the northern end of campus. Officers responded to the building within minutes and found several shooting victims, including two who died, Rozman said.

Immediately after, another shooting was reported nearby at the Michigan State University Union Building, where the third fatality was reported, he said.

At least five people were taken to a hospital, all of them in critical condition, according to Rozman. Police have not disclosed whether the victims included students or released information on their age range.

Hours after the first gunshots rang out, the suspect “was contacted by law enforcement off campus” and “it does appear that that suspect has died from a self inflicted gunshot wound,” Rozman reported.

But the hours of uncertainty that came before police found the suspect fueled chaos across campus, with police saying they got numerous erroneous 911 calls reporting gunshots heard and shootings across different locations on campus.

Authorities called the ordeal “horrific” as students hid and officers fanned out across campus.

Though officials said there is no longer a threat to the campus, the university will move into emergency operations for the next two days, during which time students will experience a continued police presence as investigators probe multiple scenes.

All classes, athletics and campus-related activities at MSU are canceled for 48 hours, campus police said, adding, “Please DO NOT come to campus tomorrow.”

“We want to wrap our warm arms around every family that is touched by this tragedy and give them the peace that passeth understanding in moments like this… we will change over time,” MSU’s interim president Teresa Woodruff said in an overnight news conference. “We cannot allow this to continue to happen again.”

The attack at MSU – which came one day before the five-year anniversary of a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida – resulted in the closure of all East Lansing Public Schools Tuesday.

“Tonight has been horrific. It’s been horrific for all of the students here and around the region. Schools have been closed. This has affected our whole region, our whole community. It’s affected families, everyone across our community,” Lansing Mayor Andy Schor said.

The campus community will need time to heal, officials said.

“This truly has been a nightmare that we are living tonight,” Rozman said. “We are relieved to no longer have an active threat on campus, while we realize that there is so much healing that will need to take place after this,” he added.

The mass shooting made for a terrifying experience for students as the suspect remained at large and officers in tactical gear streamed through the campus.

“One of the things I’m most proud of is on a campus this size how quickly every student staff faculty member immediately took action. They sheltered in place and they did so for hours,” Woodruff said.

MSU student Chris Trush told CNN he saw people running out of the Union building – a congregation spot for students on campus – shortly before an emergency alert went out to students informing them of the shooting on campus.

Trush said he was watching TV just after 8 p.m. in his apartment when he saw police cars and ambulances speeding down Grand River Avenue. He then saw people running out of the Union building.

“That’s when I knew something’s really up,” he said.

Trush said he saw dozens of officers begin to swarm the area with long rifles, and realized a shooting had taken place.

“I’m obviously not going to go outside for the next couple of days,” he said.

As shelter-in-place orders were in effect Monday evening, another student, Gabe Treutel, said he and his dorm mates hunkered down and turned to a local police scanner for information.

Treutel said he and his friends ultimately began barricading their door, just in case a shooter tried to get inside.

Another MSU student, Nithya Charles, told CNN she was sheltering within a lounge area at Campbell Hall on the north side of campus with about 30 other people.

“We’re not learning very much,” Charles told CNN’s Erin Burnett earlier in the night, saying she did not hear any gunshots herself, but that some of her co-workers heard shots.

MSU Vice President for Public Safety and Chief of Police Marlon Lynch said responding to the shooting was a “monumental task” due in part to the size of the campus.

“We have 400 buildings on campus and over 5,300 acres and part of the process of the response that we had is that we were able to divide and organize to be methodical in the search process and obtain evidence and share as it comes through. But with a university our size and the areas that we are responsible for, that becomes a task,” Lynch said.

The two buildings at the center of Monday evening’s shootings are accessible to the general public during business hours, police said in an early morning news conference Tuesday.

Police said it’s unknown how long the suspect was on campus before opening fire.

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February 14, 2023
Sources: As DPS investigation of Uvalde response nears end, two officials face increased scrutiny | CNN

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Austin, Texas
CNN
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Texas Department of Public Safety investigators looking into the botched response at Robb Elementary School have become increasingly troubled by the actions of two officials – former Uvalde schools police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo and former Uvalde Police Lt. Mariano Pargas – according to law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation.

The officials told CNN that this assessment comes after investigators reviewed hours of police body camera footage and interviewed hundreds of law enforcement personnel and witnesses.

The DPS investigation is nearly complete and expected to be in the hands of Uvalde County’s district attorney any day, DPS Director Col. Steven McCraw told CNN Thursday. The district attorney, who will ultimately decide on any charges against law enforcement, has been meeting with victims’ families to update them on the investigation and autopsy results.

Arredondo was fired as school police chief in August following criticism of his actions during the massacre on May 24, in which law enforcement waited more than an hour before entering the adjoining classrooms where the gunman was holed up. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the attack.

Arredondo is seen on body-worn cameras giving orders and receiving information during the response, but he has said he did not see himself as the incident commander.

CNN confronts Chief Pete Arredondo. See the interaction

Pargas, who was acting city police chief that day, was placed on leave in July when videos from body-worn cameras raised questions about whether he had taken any action to assume command. CNN’s reporting demonstrated Pargas was aware students were alive and needed rescue during the shooting but failed to organize help. Pargas ultimately resigned.

CNN has reached out to both Pargas and Arredondo this week to address questions about their roles and has not received responses.

On Monday, Pargas, who is also a county commissioner, told a reporter at the commission meeting: “All I can say is a lot of the stuff that’s been put out there, that is not the way it happened.” When pressed by CNN for specifics, he would not explain what he meant.

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December 15, 2022
State documents appear to indicate Uvalde Sheriff Nolasco has not completed active shooter training | CNN

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Uvalde, Texas
CNN
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Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco does not appear to have completed an active shooter training course, according to documents CNN obtained Monday from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the regulatory agency for peace officers in Texas.

The information comes on the heels of a contentious Uvalde County Commission meeting, during which Richard Carter, an attorney with expertise in police actions, presented the results of an independent review – which the county hired him to conduct – of the Sheriff’s Office policies at the time of the Robb Elementary School massacre.

According to Carter, the sheriff’s office did not have an active shooter policy on May 24, when a teenaged gunman with a semi-automatic rifle stormed the school and killed 19 students and two teachers.

Active shooter training is not required by county or state rules for people who aren’t school-based law enforcement officers. And an active shooter response policy is not required by Texas law of law enforcement agencies, according to the report.

County commissioners met behind closed doors for more than 90 minutes to review the report and meet with victims’ family members. Community members called for Nolasco’s ouster at the meeting following CNN’s reporting last week about his failure to mount a response at the school and his failure to share critical information about the shooter.

Nolasco was one of the senior law enforcement officials on the scene of the massacre.

After the meeting, Carter also appeared to indicate Nolasco hadn’t received active shooter training.

“He has not taken the course that his officers – all but three of his officers – have. He plans on doing that in the immediate future,” Carter said. “What I understood was, he wanted to make sure that all of his people that might go out were trained,” before he received his own training.

In an email to CNN that included Nolasco’s records, law enforcement commission spokesperson Gretchen Grigsby said that “active shooter training is only required for school-based law enforcement officers as part of a one-time certification,” but she expected the topic would be a subject of discussion during the next legislative session.

CNN has reached out to Nolasco about the contents of the report but has not received a response.

CNN has also reached back out to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to clarify the contents of Nolasco’s training history, and has not received a response.

The conclusion of Carter’s review comes after months of reporting by CNN about the law enforcement response to the shooting, including that Nolasco had vital information about the shooter that was not shared as the incident unfolded. It was just the latest revelation of senior law enforcement officers not taking command or following protocol to stop an active shooter and get swift treatment to victims.

Carter’s inquiry, which was conducted over about two months, dealt strictly with the sheriff’s office’s policies, he said Monday.

The office has since adopted an active shooter policy, Carter said during the public portion of Monday’s meeting.

But at the time of the shooting – the worst at a K-12 school in the US in nearly a decade – its handbook only defined “active shooter,” Carter said. And while there were “portions that dealt with critical incidences and how officers would respond,” it did not constitute an active shooter policy, he added.

Whether the sheriff’s office had an active shooter policy, however, is “no excuse for what happened” the day of the shooting, one community member said in a public comment portion of the meeting Monday.

“Our officers in Uvalde County, including the city, school, and county, don’t live under a rock,” Diana Olvedo-Karau said. “Active shooter incidents happen across our nation all too often… so to step back and give the impression that because there was no policy there’s no accountability, is unacceptable, inexcusable, and shameful.”

Carter did not examine the actions of the agency’s personnel on the scene of the shooting, he said, which, along with the broader law enforcement response, have been highly scrutinized.

The grandmother of shooting victim Amerie Jo Garza said she was in “total shock” the Sheriff’s Office didn’t have an active shooter policy in place.

“I could not believe that with all the mass shootings that have taken place, just in Texas alone, that there was no policy in place. It was a total shock,” Berlinda Irene Arreola said on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.

Arreola said it was difficult seeing Mariano Pargas, acting Uvalde police chief on the day of the shooting, at the meeting.

“It was very hard, and It was very sad,” she said of Pargas, who has since resigned but is still a county commissioner.

Arreola said that she believes he had plenty of time to take control of the incident but that “instead he ran in the other direction.”

“So, seeing him for the first time was very, very hurtful,” she said.

Arreola said the upcoming holidays are going to be a difficult time for her family without Amerie.

“My son and my daughter-in-law just can’t keep it together to be able to enjoy the holidays. So it’s going to be different, definitely different this year and very sad. Very sad,” she said.

In the months since the shooting, criticism of law enforcement’s response has focused on its failure to follow the main tenets of post-Columbine policies to immediately take down an active shooter. Instead, acting on the early and erroneous assessment that the gunman was barricaded, as opposed to an active shooter with his victims surrounding him inside two adjoining classrooms, police waited 77 minutes before confronting him.

Much of the initial criticism focused on Uvalde School Police Chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, who had said he never considered himself in charge the day of the shooting. He was ultimately fired in August.

In the months since the shooting, however, it’s become clear the failures that day went far beyond the scope of the small school police force. According to a preliminary report by a Texas House of Representatives investigative committee, 376 officers from local, state and federal agencies were on the scene of the massacre.

Pargas, who remains an elected county commissioner, resigned from the police department after CNN reported he knew children needed rescuing and did not organize help.

Separately, a Texas Ranger and a state police captain are under review for their actions or inaction the day of the shooting, and a state police sergeant was terminated. Another officer who quit the state police force and took a job with the Uvalde school district was also fired after CNN reported she was under investigation for her actions during the shooting.

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December 12, 2022
‘There is no universal school safety solution.’ Nashville attack renews debate over how best to protect students | CNN

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Semiautomatic gunfire echoed in the hallways of The Covenant School, making a distinct noise teachers there would not soon forget.

That was more than 14 months ago – before three children and three adults were gunned down on Monday in the stately stone school connected to Covenant Presbyterian Church, atop a tree-shrouded hill just south of downtown Nashville.

The active shooter training session ended with live gunfire intended to familiarize school staff with real gunshots if they ever heard them.

“Blanks don’t sound the same. They just don’t,” said security consultant Brink Fidler, whose firm conducted the exercise.

A bullet trap the trainers wheeled around captured the rounds of a semiautomatic pistol and an AR-15-style rifle loaded with real ammunition.

When a handful of teachers heard the very first shot of Monday’s rampage they initially mistook it for the din of ongoing construction at the building.

“But then they said, ‘When we heard a few more after that we all knew because we had heard it before,” said Fidler, a former police officer who did a walk-through of the elementary school with Nashville officials on Wednesday – two days after another massacre in America renewed questions about what schools are doing to protect children and staff against mass murder.

As investigators work to determine the motive for the carnage, students, parents and school leaders across the country are again asking what more can be done to secure schools in the era of active shooter drills, lockdowns and widespread anxiety amid recurring mass shootings.

Fortified school buildings and entrance doors, glass panes coated in bullet-resistant laminate, locked classrooms and heavy surveillance have became a part of life in places where children are supposed to feel inspired to learn.

A funeral service for Evelyn Dieckhaus, 9, the first victim to be laid to rest, was held Friday, which would have been the final school day before Easter break for the 200 or so private school students.

The shooter was a former Covenant School student, who also killed William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, both 9; Katherine Koonce, the 60-year-old head of the school; Cynthia Peak, a 61-year-old substitute teacher; and Mike Hill, a 61-year-old custodian.

Police fatally shot the 28-year-old attacker – who was armed with an AR-15 military-style rifle, a 9 mm Kel-Tec SUB2000 pistol caliber carbine, and a 9 mm Smith and Wesson M&P Shield EZ 2.0 handgun – inside the school about 14 minutes after the shooter fired through locked glass doors to enter the building.

The AR-15 and 9 mm pistol caliber carbine appeared to have 30-round magazines, according to experts who reviewed photos and video released by police.

Officers were on scene at 10:24 a.m. and fatally shot the attacker three minutes later, police said.

“The shooter, confronted in the second floor lobby, didn’t even have a chance to get to the classrooms,” said CNN analyst Jennifer Mascia, a writer and founding staffer of The Trace, a non-profit focused on gun violence. “That is something that is very reassuring to parents across the country. However, as we see, even a robust police response is not enough.”

The attack was the 19th shooting at an American school or university in 2023 in which at least one person was wounded, according to a CNN count. It was the deadliest since the May attack in Uvalde, Texas, left 21 dead. There have been 42 K-12 school shootings since Uvalde, where the gunman fired 100 or so rounds before police breached a classroom more than an hour later and killed the attacker to end the siege.

Once again, children, their parents and school leaders are left struggling with how to stop and handle mass shootings even though such incidents are rare and schools are still quite safe.

“What a lot of school leaders have learned is don’t react quickly. You’ve got a lot of pressure to do something right away but it’s really better to be thoughtful,” said Michael Dorn, executive director of Safe Havens International, a nonprofit school safety firm that has evaluated security at thousands of schools.

“You should assume that you don’t have a good picture of what really happened and what didn’t. Be very skeptical about claims that this saves lives or people died because of that. In Tennessee no one will have a really accurate picture of what happened there for months.”

Coping with the nightmare scenario of a school shooting is now part of the mission to educate and counsel children.

It’s been 24 years since the Columbine High School mass shooting left 13 people dead in 1999. And more than a decade since a gunman shot his way through glass at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed six adults and 20 children.

“We keep repeating the same mistakes because people don’t know what the same mistakes are,” Fidler said. “School resource officers are a great part of the solution. Security laminate – great part of the solution. Cameras – great part of the solution. But if the people in the building don’t know what to do, none of that other stuff means anything.”

Mass shootings have helped fuel a multibillion dollar school security industry in recent years – ranging from high-tech surveillance systems to weapon scanners and hand-held emergency panic devices to immediately alert law enforcement and lock down schools.

“The message is really simple and it has been since before Nashville,” said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, who was scheduled to speak about school security this weekend at the annual conference of the National School Boards Association in Orlando, Florida. “One of the worst times to make knee jerk policy and administrative actions is after a high profile incident like this when you’re in a highly emotional state.”

Experts said school officials should not give in to political pressures to take steps that are likely to be ineffective and wasteful of limited resources.

“We’ve been in schools where, on the positive side, almost every staff member has a two-way walkie talkie, which is good,” Trump said. “And we’ve been in other schools, sometimes in the same district, where they’re sitting in a charger and the principal says, ‘Well, we have them but I prefer to not use them.’ “

He added, “When security works, it works because of people. When it fails, it fails because of people.”

Dorn said he has been inundated with emails since Monday from companies “I’ve never heard of,” with offers of technology they claim will heighten security in schools.

“The three things that every school leader better pay a lot of attention to is, we have limited time, energy and budget for safety,” Dorn said. “So we can’t afford to waste any of that. We can’t spend our budget or training time on something that we don’t have pretty good evidence actually bears fruit. With the caution that nothing’s going to be 100 percent. This idea that we’re gonna stop all school shootings; there’s just, no country has been able to do that.”

Dorn and others pointed to a 2016 school safety technology report from Johns Hopkins University that found there was insufficient evidence to show devices such as weapons detectors and high-tech alarms and sensors helped curb mass shootings.

“There is no universal school safety solution – no one technology will solve all school safety and security issues,” the researchers wrote. “The sheer number of schools and school districts across the country – with different geography, funding, building construction and layout, demographics, and priorities – make each one different.”

Fidler and others said more resources should be devoted to educating and training students and school staff on recognizing and responding to threats.

“I can’t tell you how many of our school clients still have classroom doors that are not lockable from inside the classroom,” he said.

Referring to training and preparation for catastrophic school events like a mass shooting, Fidler said: “As a society we suck at this – which is terrible, but we do.”

On Wednesday, two days after the massacre, Fidler did a walk-through of the blood-stained school corridors with investigators. “It was hard, man. I’m struggling,” the law enforcement veteran of nearly 20 years said Saturday. “Some of that blood belonged to people I know.”

Fidler found that upon recognizing they were under attack teachers and staff relied on their training.

The shooter fired multiple rounds into several classroom doors but didn’t hit any students inside “because the teachers knew exactly what to do, how to fortify their doors and where to place their children in those rooms,” Fidler said.

“Their ability to execute, literally flawlessly, under that amount of stress while somebody is trying to murder them and their children, that is what made the difference here,” he said.

“These teachers are the reason those kids went home to their families.”

Koonce, the head of the school, had been adamant about training school staff on how to respond during an active shooter situation, Fidler said.

“She understood the severity of the topic and the severity of the teachers needing to have the knowledge of what to do in that situation,” he said.

“Katherine went to find out what was happening” when she was shot, Fidler said. “You know, Katherine Koonce, I could have had a lasso around her waist and she would drag me down the hall. She was going to go find out what’s going on and try and figure out what’s best for her students… She went right to it.”

Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake could not confirm how Koonce died but said, “I do know she was in the hallway by herself. There was a confrontation, I’m sure. You can tell the way she is lying in the hallway.”

Fidler said teachers covered windows. They shut off lights. Unused medical kits sat on desks.

“Countless teachers had their bleeding control kits out, staged and ready to treat people in their classroom,” he recalled.

“The fact that they had the wherewithal to do that. ‘Ok, I’ve got my kids secure. I’ve got the door locked and barricaded.’ And now, as a teacher, to have the wherewithal to remember the last piece, the medical, because we can potentially save a lot of people. They crushed it. They were able to perform under that amount of stress… They were able to recall all this information and put it into practice.”

The six shooting victims were trapped in hallways and killed, Fidler said.

“How many teachers in America could walk into their classroom right now and throw a tourniquet on the table and put that on? How many of them could do it?”

His message for anxious parents: “Ask questions. Find out what your kids’ school is doing or not doing. And don’t stop asking until something’s done.”

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April 12, 2021