WARNING: THIS ARTICLE INCLUDES EXTREMELY GRAPHIC CONTENT
Body cam footage released Tuesday showed the quick response of Nashville police officers to the mass shooting at a Christian elementary school Monday morning.
Footage from officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo showed the team of officers rushing through the Covenant School minutes after the 28-year-old female shooter, who identified as a man, entered the building. Police reached the shooter, who was on the second floor of the school building, around 10:27 a.m., just 14 minutes after the first emergency call was made.
MNPD Officers Rex Engelbert, a 4-year veteran, and Michael Collazo, a 9-year veteran, were part of a team of first responders to the Covenant campus Mon morning. They fired on the active shooter, who was killed. This is their body camera footage. https://t.co/17qsZM6bNp pic.twitter.com/g4b0nMTFRD
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) March 28, 2023
After clearing some of the first floor, Englebert is heard telling his partners that “it sounds like [the shooter] is upstairs.” Englebert and his team of officers raced to the second floor and ran down the hallway as gunfire is heard. At the end of the hallway, Englebert peered around the corner where the shooter was standing and fired multiple shots, dropping her to the ground.
Collazo and one other officer then moved in on the shooter, yelling at her to “stop moving.” Collazo then fired more shots at her after she dropped to the ground as she continued to move and clung to her gun. Collazo and the other officer finally reached the shooter’s body, telling her to “get your hands away from the gun” before Collazo moved the firearms away from the shooter’s body.
The 28-year-old shooter murdered three children and three adults at the Covenant School before she was killed by police. Nashville Police Chief John Drake said the shooting was a “targeted attack.”
On Monday afternoon, local authorities along with the FBI searched the home of the female shooter. During the search, law enforcement said they found “a manifesto” along with maps of the school drawn in detail that included points of entry. The police chief said authorities have a theory on the shooter’s motive, but they are not ready to share it yet.
Police identified the six victims, and they include three 9-year-old children and three adults.
According to the Metro Nashville Police Department, the victims are “Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9, Cynthia Peak, age 61, Katherine Koonce, age 60, and Mike Hill, age 61.” Koonce was the head of the Covenant School.
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The Covenant School is a private Presbyterian school in Nashville’s Green Hills neighborhood that educates children from preschool through sixth grade. According to the school’s website, it enrolls between 195 and 210 students.
WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC CONTENT