A school shooter in Nashville hid firearms in his parents’ home.
Police say the shooter who killed six people at a Nashville, Tennessee, school on Monday legally purchased and hid seven firearms in his home.
According to investigators, the suspect’s parents believed their 28-year-old son should not possess firearms, but were unaware that the weapons were hidden in their home.
In the attack at the Covenant School, six people, including three nine-year-old children, were killed.
Police say the suspect was “under doctor’s care for an emotional disorder.”
Officers revealed that the school, and not any specific individual, was the target.
There are no laws in Tennessee that permit police to seize firearms from violent suspects.
Despite the absence of so-called red-flag laws, police said they would have pursued the confiscation of the suspect’s weapons if they had any indication that he posed a threat.
The attack claimed the lives of Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney.
Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61, three adult employees of the privately run Christian school, also died.
The parents of the suspect Audrey Hale, who was killed by police less than 15 minutes after the attack began, have been interviewed by police.
Former student Hale, who identified as transgender, was armed with three firearms, including a semi-automatic rifle.
The attack occurred after the perpetrator conducted surveillance of the location, drew maps, and penned what police termed a “manifesto.”
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A police spokesman stated that the assailant did not specifically target any individual, but did target “this school and this church building.”
Hale’s parents believed the suspect had only possessed one firearm, which had been sold.
They believed that the suspect “should not possess weapons” and were unaware that the suspect “had been hiding several weapons within the house,” according to Nashville Police Chief John Drake.
The firearms were legally acquired from five stores throughout the city.
Chief Drake stated, without elaboration, that the perpetrator “was receiving medical treatment for an emotional disorder.”
If there had been reports of suicidal or violent tendencies, police would have attempted to seize the firearms, he added.
“However, we had no idea who this person was or whether [the suspect] even existed,” he said.
Monday at 10:13 local time (15:13 GMT), police received their first call about the incident.
The suspect drove a Honda Fit to the school and entered the building by shooting through one of the locked doors.
Video footage subsequently released by Nashville police shows the shooter opening fire to shatter glass panes on the front doors, then wandering the school’s deserted hallways, passing a room labeled “Children’s Ministry” at one point.
In the surveillance footage, the suspect appears to be wearing a protective vest and carrying an assault-style rifle in one hand, with a second weapon visible on his left hip.
The suspect fired shots on the first floor of the building before moving to the second floor.
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As police vehicles approached, the assailant fired upon them from the second floor, striking one vehicle in the windshield.
Chief Drake stated, “We believe there was training involved in being able to shoot from a higher elevation.”
According to him, the suspect positioned himself away from the window to avoid being an easy target for police.
Broken glass caused one officer to sustain an injury. The suspect was fatally shot by police at 10:24, according to Chief Drake.
Tuesday, President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass new gun control legislation.
He stated, “As a nation, we owe these families more than prayers.” We owe action to them.
During a Senate hearing in Washington, DC, Attorney General Merrick Garland was asked if the attack will be investigated as a hate crime against Christians.
He stated that it was too soon to tell and that agents were still attempting to determine a motive.
The attack was the 131st mass shooting in the United States this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organization that tracks gun violence data.
Since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, there have been 15 mass shootings at schools or universities in the United States, according to a database maintained by the Associated Press.
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