Nashville.- The person who killed three students and three staff members at a Nashville Christian school legally purchased seven guns in recent years and concealed them from their parents before carrying out the attack by firing indiscriminately at the victims and spraying bullets at doors and windows, as revealed by the police on Tuesday.
The violence that occurred Monday at The Covenant School was the latest shooting in the country and was carefully planned. The shooter drew detailed maps of the school, including potential entry points, and staked out the building before carrying out the massacre, authorities said.
The person responsible, Audrey Hale, 28, studied at the school. Hale did not target any specific victims — including three 9-year-olds and the school’s principal — but did target “this school and this church building,” the police spokesman said. Don Aaron during a press conference that Tuesday.
Hale was under medical care for an undisclosed emotional disorder and was not released to police before the attack, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at a news conference.
If he had told police that Hale was suicidal or homicidal, “we would have tried to take those weapons away from her,” Drake said. “But as it turned out, we had no idea who this person was or if Hale existed.”
Tennessee does not currently have an “alert law” in place, which allows police to intervene and take weapons from people who threaten to kill people.
Hale’s parents believed their daughter had sold a gun and did not possess any others, Drake said, adding that Hale “had concealed multiple weapons inside the house.”
Hale’s motive was unknown, Drake said. In an interview with NBC News on Monday, Drake said investigators don’t know what motivated Hale to commit the massacre, but they believe he “had some resentment for going to that school.”
