Body Cameras Show Horrifying Details Of Nashville School Shooting

NASHVILLE, TN — The former student who gunned down six people, including three children, at a private school in Nashville Monday entered the building by shooting through its double glass doors and fired at officers from inside the building before being killed in an exchange of gunfire, video footage released by police on Tuesday shows.

Police in Nashville released surveillance footage from the school as well as body camera footage from two officers who responded to the school.

The body camera footage captured in vivid detail officers' response to The Covenant School.

The footage was taken from the body cameras of Officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo, who were on the team that killed Audrey Hale, the 28-year-old shooter who police said identified as transgender.

Police received an active shooter call at 10:13 a.m., they said. Their vehicles were fired at by Hale from a second-story window, according to authorities. Hale was killed 14 minutes later.

The footage shows officers arrive and enter the school as a woman outside the building provides information and directions.

"The kids are locked down, but we have two kids that we don't know where they are," she said.

The woman told police the shooter had fired through a window.

"They're upstairs," she said, apparently of the shooter, while a voice out of frame cautioned police that, "Upstairs are a bunch of kids."

Once inside, the heavily armed officers run through hallways lined with cubbies and brightly colored bulletin boards, checking empty rooms as they go. An alarm blares in the background.

“We got one down," an officer said, and the camera later pans past a blurred image that appears to be a body.

Loud blasts ring out as officers move through the halls.

“Shots fired, shots fired, shots fired — move!” one officer yelled.

Eventually, the police reach an open atrium area. More blasts are heard as the officers fire.

“Stop moving, stop moving, get your hand away from the gun!” an officer yelled, as Hale, whose face is blurred, is shown prone on the floor.

“Suspect down, suspect down!” someone shouted.

The body camera recordings, which contain some graphic imagery, can be viewed on the police department's Facebook page.

Police also released surveillance footage overnight from the shooting.

The timestamped video shows Hale driving onto the school’s Burton Hills Boulevard campus around 9:54 a.m. and shooting out glass double doors to gain entry to the building at 10:11 a.m. The school is located at Covenant Presbyterian Church.

Heavily armed and wearing a red backward baseball cap, a T-shirt, a tactical-style vest, camouflage pants and sneakers, Hale is visible walking the halls and pointing a firearm.

At 10:13 a.m., Hale is briefly shown entering an area outside the church office with a gun raised. Around 10:18 a.m., Hale entered the office, exited the office less than a minute later, and aimed a weapon outside the office, appearing to go through one door before walking through another set of doors with a firearm raised. The entire time, a light flashed in the background.

Two minutes later, Hale appeared to fire toward an open area near the entrance to the children’s ministry.

Police identified the victims in The Covenant School shooting as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all 9 years old, and Katherine Koonce, 60; Cynthia Peak, 61; and Mike Hill, 61.

Koonce was head of the school. Hill was a custodian and Peak was a substitute teacher, according to authorities.

Officers entered the first floor, heard shots on the second level and went toward the gunfire, according to police, who said they found Hale actively firing but fatally shot Hale at 10:27 a.m. Hale fired a number of rounds inside the building, police said.

Hale was armed with at least two assault-style rifles and a handgun, police said. The shooter was a former student of the school, according to Chief of Police John Drake, who said investigators found detailed drawn maps of the school and discovered material written by Hale in the Honda Fit that Hale drove to the campus.

Hale identified as transgender and had no criminal history, according to police, who said Tuesday that Hale was undergoing treatment for an emotional disorder and had recently bought seven guns, according to the New York Times.

Drake did not give a specific motive when asked by reporters but gave chilling examples of the shooter’s prior planning for the targeted attack.

“We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident,” he said. “We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place.”

He said in an interview with NBC News that investigators believe Hale had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”

Editor's note: This story has been updated to accurately reflect the number of people giving officers directions outside the school as recorded on Engelbert's body camera.