Nashville police release bodycam footage from school shooting
Retired NYPD inspector Paul Mauro joined "America's Newsroom" to discuss his takeaways from the bodycam video of the Covenant School shooting response.
Nashville police have released bodycam video of the Covenant School shooting response during which they killed shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a 28-year-old transgender former student whom they say gunned down three 9-year-olds and three adults Monday.
"The kids are all locked down, but we have two kids that we don't know where they are," a woman told Nashville Officer Rex Engelbert as he grabbed a rifle out of the back of his police SUV.
"OK," he said. "Yes, ma'am."
"At the end of this hall is Fellowship Hall," the woman tells officers. "They just said they heard gunshots down there and then upstairs are a bunch of kids."
Bodycam footage shows Nashville Police Department officers responding to the Covenant School in Nashville after 28-year-old Audrey Hale opened fire. (Metropolitan Nashville Police Department)
"Let's go," Engelbert calls out. "I need three."
Within moments, sirens blare as he unlocks a side door and leads the charge inside the building.
Officers searched the classrooms with a determined urgency before the sound of gunshots around three minutes into the six-minute video sent them sprinting up the stairs to the second floor.
Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale, 28, is pictured in a driver's license photo and on school surveillance video released by Nashville police. Hale killed three 9-year-olds and three adults Monday morning at a private school linked to a church. (Metro Nashville Police Department)
About 25 seconds later, the rampage came to an end with Hale fatally wounded.
Fox News Digital is using still frames from the graphic video.
While the response team included several others, police credited Officers Engelbert and Michael Collazo for their active roles in the response and released both of their bodycams together in a single clip. The two of them opened fire.
After Engelbert is shown initially taking down the suspect, Collazo rushed in as police commanded Hale to drop the weapon and to stop moving.
NASHVILLE SCHOOL SHOOTING: OFFICERS WHO TOOK OUT COVENANT SHOOTER IDENTIFIED
Bodycam footage shows Nashville Police Department officers responding to the Covenant School in Nashville after 28-year-old Audrey Hale opened fire. (Metropolitan Nashville Police Department)
Dave Katz, the CEO of Global Security Group and a former DEA special agent who led the agency's ballistic shield program in the 1990s, called the two officers who took down Hale "heroes indeed."
"That's exactly what has to be done," he told Fox News Digital. "Heedless of officer safety, you enter and dispatch the shooter."
Hale had attended the school years ago, the Metro Nashville Police Department said Monday.
They said the killer left written material that indicated the attack "was calculated and planned."
According to its website, the Covenant School opened in 2001 as part of the Covenant Presbyterian Church and served children from pre-K through sixth grade.
The child victims included the pastor's daughter, Hallie Scruggs, as well as Evelyn Dieckhaus and William Kinney. Police identified the adults as 60-year-old Head of School Katherine Koonce, Cynthia Peak, 61, and Mike Hill, 61.
Bodycam footage shows Nashville Police Department officers responding to the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, after 28-year-old Audrey Hale opened fire. (Metropolitan Nashville Police Department)
Hale rolled up Monday around 10:15 a.m. in a Honda Fit, where police discovered the manifesto.
The shooter brought "significant ammunition" and three weapons to the attack: two semiautomatic rifles and a handgun.
NASHVILLE SCHOOL SHOOTING: 6 KILLED INCLUDING 3 STUDENTS, SHOOTER DEAD
Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said the Nashville, Tennessee, shooting suspect fired at police as they approached the school. (Metro Nashville Police Department)
Within 15 minutes, responding officers took down the shooter, who was killed at the scene following an exchange of gunfire.
Police said Hale opened fire on responding officers from a second-story window before a two-man team inside the building, Engelbert and Collazo, put an end to the carnage.
A police officer walks by an entrance to the Covenant School after a shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday, March 27, 2023. (AP Photo / John Amis)
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Investigators served a search warrant at Hale's home about three miles away and found hand-drawn maps of the school, a sawed-off shotgun and a second shotgun, along with other unspecified evidence.
Fox News' Paul Best contributed to this report.
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