by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News March 28, 2023
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department has released body camera footage from two of the officers who confronted the shooter who killed three students and three faculty members at the Covenant School on Monday.
The footage released Tuesday shows Officers Rex Englebert and Michael Collazo’s perspectives from when they arrived at the Christian school to when the shooter, Audrey Hale, was killed.
Police revealed Monday that Hale was transgender, being a biological woman who identified as a man.
Englebert’s footage shows him talking with a school employee, who says the children are on lockdown but that they do not know where two children are. Englebert then leads officers into the building, announcing their presence by yelling, “Metro police.”
He and other officers then search two classrooms, finding no one, eventually searching another room and the hallways on the first floor. The sound of the building’s fire alarm can be heard throughout the footage.
Englebert says he hears something upstairs, at which point he leads his group to where another group of police had been searching. Gunshots are immediately audible once Englebert gets upstairs. He rushes down a hallway meeting up with other police officers.
On Englebert’s body camera, the shooter can be seen by a window firing a gun. Englebert fires at Hale, who falls to the ground. The officers then approach the shooter and fire at Hale again. They demand Hale move away from the gun, but the shooter does not move, and Collazo then takes two weapons away from Hale.
Collazo’s body camera footage shows him and his group entering the building and rushing through the hallway to the stairwell to the second floor.
Once the stairwell is deemed clear, the officers head up to the second floor. Once on the second floor, Collazo and the other officers can hear the shooter firing in the distance and announce, “Shots fired.”
The officers run through the hallways toward the sound of gunfire as the other officers join them. Englebert can be seen firing the first shots at the shooter.
Collazo then approaches the shooter, who is still moving, and shoots Hale with his gun. Hale’s arms can then be seen falling to the ground. Collazo then announces “suspect down” over his walky-talky and disarms the shooter of two of the guns.
Visible in footage from both officers is that some of the glass in the window next to where Hale was standing is broken. Police have previously said the shooter was firing at arriving police cars through a window.
Footage released earlier by police showed Hale entering the school by shooting through some doors, then opening some doors and entering for a time. Every time Hale enters a room, Hale appears ready to open fire, but no violence was shown on those released tapes. The video showed Hale’s weapons clearly visible. Hale was seen in the prior footage wearing a backward red hat, camouflage pants, and a white shirt, along with a tactical vest holding the weapons.
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