It was a woman — Audrey Hale, 28 — who was responsible for massacre at a Christian private school in the city of Nashville, Tennessee (USA) this Monday (27). At first there was no such information, since Audrey is a transgender person, and the local police attributed the attack to a man. Three children and three adults died.
Afterwards, in exchange of gunfire with the authorities, the woman was killed. In the photo, Hale in a hallway already inside the school
According to Hale’s profile on a social network, she identified with male pronouns, hence the initial information that she was a shooter. Hale was carrying “at least two assault rifles and a pistol,” local police spokesman Don Aaron told a news conference. In the middle of the morning of this Monday, Audrey entered through a secondary door of The Covenant School, a small school, where it is believed that she would have studied, according to the preliminary elements of the investigation. Hale went through the ground floor and up to the 1st floor, firing several times. Three students, ages 8 to 9, and three adults, ages 60 to 61, were killed, Aaron said.
Image shows the shooter walking down a hallway at the Nashville high school
The police went to the scene and, after hearing gunshots upstairs, went up ‘immediately’ and ‘killed’ Audrey, who was pronounced dead at 10:27 local time (12:27 GMT), fifteen minutes after the first distress call, he added. One of the victims, identified as Katherine Koonce, appears as the school principal on the institution’s website. Another, according to the New York Times, was a girl named Hallie Scruggs, daughter of pastor Chad Scruggs.
In the image, Audrey walks inside the school carrying her semi-automatic weapon.
When asked if Hale’s gender identity could have been a factor in the attack, Drake replied: “There is some theory about it, we are investigating all leads.” The President of the United States, Joe Biden, praised the security forces for the agility with which they reacted to the crime, which he classified as “disgusting”, and decreed flags at half mast in the White House. Gun violence “is tearing apart our communities, tearing apart the soul of this nation,” Biden said at the White House, again calling on Congress to ban semi-automatic rifles.
In the photo, one of the three weapons used by the shooter this Monday (27)
According to the publication, the school was founded by the Covenant Presbyterian Church. During the attack, one of the preschool teachers managed to call her daughter. “She told me she was hiding in a closet, there were shots everywhere,” Avery Myrick told WSMV4, the local branch of the NBC network. She said she was relieved that her mother was alive but “feels in pain for all those” who lost loved ones in the massacre.
Photo shows students being removed from the school this Monday (27)
Throughout the day, distressed parents looked for their children in the church where they were sheltering. The reason for the attack, still unknown, could be related to the aggressor’s ‘grudge’ towards the school, according to John Drake. Police searched Audrey Hale’s home and found a ‘direction map’ to the school and a ‘manifesto’, Drake added, suggesting the attack was premeditated.
Image shows children inside school bus with police officers
Democrats have long called for Congress to ban, or at least restrict, the possession of those weapons designed to cause the greatest number of casualties, but Republicans are opposed to that. Republican congressmen from the state of Tennessee, whose capital is Nashville, also expressed outrage on social media, but without mentioning the topic of firearms. “I am devastated,” tweeted Republican Senator Bill Hagerty. Her colleague Marsha Blackburn called on people to ‘pray’ for the victims.
In the photo, relatives of victims mourn the deaths that took place this Monday (27) at a high school in Nashville (USA)
Deadly shooting attacks are common in the United States, where there are an estimated 400 million firearms in circulation that caused more than 45,000 deaths in 2020 by suicide, accident or homicide, according to the latest figures published by the Centers for Control and Prevention. Disease Prevention (CDC). That year, for the first time, weapons became the main cause of death among children aged 1 to 19 years, with 4,368 deaths, ahead of traffic accidents and overdoses, according to the same source.
Photo shows another child being taken out of school
School massacres constitute a small part of the total, but they leave an indelible mark on society. A 2018 massacre at a Florida high school sparked a nationwide youth-led movement to demand stricter oversight of firearms in the United States.
Despite the mobilization of more than 1 million protesters, the United States Congress did not adopt a tougher law because many congressmen are under the influence of the National Rifle Association (NRA, its acronym in English), a pro-gun group. In a country where millions of Americans consider carrying a gun a constitutional right, recent legislative advances remain marginal, such as the generalization of criminal and psychiatric background checks in order to purchase a gun. According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in February, 51% of Americans are against the ban and only 47% are in favor.
In the image, facade of the school that suffered the attack this Monday, in Nashville. Front windows are broken, possibly because of the shots fired by the shooter and the police.