Bodycam footage shows Nashville police searching Christian school for gunman
Sign up to our free US news bulletin sent straight to your inbox each weekday morning
Sign up to our free morning US email news bulletin
A manifesto written by the Nashville school shooting suspect Audrey Hale will soon be released by officers investigating Monday’s deadly attack on The Covenant School in the Tennessee city, according to reports.
Pupils Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all aged nine, and staff members Katherine Koonce, Cynthia Peak and Mike Hill were shot dead when an armed assailant identified by police as Hale, 28, a former student of the private Christian elementary school, burst into the building and opened fire.
No motivation for the attack has yet been established but on Wednesday it emerged that Hale had previously posted on Facebook about the death of a romantic partner, according to a former teacher, offering a possible clue.
Maria Colomy, who taught Hale at the Nossi College of Art & Design in Nashville, recalled a social media post from the suspect “openly grieving” an individual and said that Hale had announced the bereavement and asked to be addressed as Aiden and by masculine pronouns from then on.
Further reports quoting friends of Hale indicated the suspect had been left grief-stricken by the death of Sydney Shere Sims in a traffic accident in August 2022, a former classmate from the Isaiah T Creswell Middle School of the Arts and the Nashville School of the Arts whom Hale “definitely admired”.
One classmate said Hale had been “heartbroken” over the tragedy and characterised the suspect’s feelings as “maybe even infatuation” towards Sims, someone they “really, really looked up to”.
Nashville police chief John Drake has said that Hale was “under doctor’s care for an emotional disorder” before the killings, had hidden seven legally-purchased weapons at home and that an unspecified “resentment” against the institution could have been the reason for the massacre.
US first lady Jill Biden attended a candlelight vigil in Nashville on Wednesday night while, in Washington, Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy declined to commit to new gun control legislation, arguing that lawmakers must see “all the facts” before reacting to the atrocity.
Nashville school shooter previously posted online about death of partner, says teacher
Nashville school shooting suspect Audrey Hale had previously posted on Facebook about the death of a romantic partner, according to a former teacher.
Art college instructor Maria Colomy, who taught Hale at the Nossi College of Art & Design in Nashville, recalled a Facebook post from the shooter “openly grieving” the individual.
Speaking to The New York Times, Ms Colomy said that Hale had announced the bereavement and asked to be addressed as Aiden and by masculine pronouns from then on.
“She had been openly grieving about that on social media, and during the grieving is when she announced that she wanted to be addressed as a male,” the teacher said.
Audrey Hale wrote about bereavement on Facebook, says college art instructor
Heroic headteacher ended Zoom call and ran towards shooter during Nashville school massacre
Heroic headteacher Katherine Koonce ran towards the shooter during the Nashville school massacre before the killer “assassinated” her in a hallway, it has been revealed.
Nashville City councilman Russ Pulley told Fox News that Koonce, 60, was on a Zoom call when she learned that there was an active shooting situation inside The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.
Katherine Koonce, 60, was found in a hallway by herself where police say she was ‘assassinated’ by shooter
‘How many children have to die like those in Nashville before the US changes its gun laws?'
Also for Indy Voices, here’s Victoria Richards with a timely reminder of just how obscene it is that mass shootings like Monday’s horrific events in Nashville have been allowed to become commonplace.
If these stories sound like numbers to you, if it feels like they blur, could that not be because they’ve become so commonplace as to be obscene?
‘We must reject the transphobic narrative around Nashville'
The right is the radicalised threat to public safety, not the LGBTQ community – I have the receipts to prove it, writes Skylar Baker-Jordan for Indy Voices.
‘The right is the radicalized threat to public safety, not the LGBTQ community. Here are the receipts to prove it.’
Despite school shooting, Tennessee's gun laws likely to remain lax
As Nashville residents reel from the fatal grade school shooting that left six dead, a federal judge has quietly cleared the way to drop the minimum age for Tennesseans to carry handguns publicly without a permit to 18 — just two years after a new law set the age at 21.
The move marked yet another relaxation of gun laws in ruby-red Tennessee, where Republican leaders have steadily chipped away at firearms regulations and lambasted those who have warned that doing so comes at a cost.
A federal judge quietly cleared the way to drop the minimum age to 18 for Tennesseans to carry handguns in public without a permit the same day Nashville residents were reeling from a fatal grade school shooting that left six dead, including three children
Biden acknowledges demand for new gun laws be says he ‘can’t do anything except plead with Congress’
With Republicans controlling the House of Representatives in the wake of last November’s midterms, achieving any meaningful change to firearms regulations is a dimmer prospect than ever right now, hence the president’s dismayed tone.
Right-wing bgun industry apologists are already striving to characterise Audrey Hale’s actions as a mental health matter unrelated to the ready availability of military-grade weapons.
Congress is unlikely to take any action on new gun laws because Republicans control the House
Audrey Hale became ‘infatuated’ with dead schoolmate in months leading up to Nashville shooting
Here’s Rachel Sharp with the latest on the suspect’s possible motivation for Monday’s attack.
Sydney Sims, a 27-year-old former basketball teammate of Hale, died in a head-on car crash last August in Nashville
Arizona governor’s press secretary resigns after ‘transphobe’ gun meme in wake of Nashville shooting
The press secretary for Arizona governor Katie Hobbs has resigned after facing strong criticism for posting a meme suggesting violent measures against transphobes in the wake of the Nashville school shooting.
Police have said that the suspect in the shooting, Audrey Hale, 28, was a trans man, prompting dangerous anti-trans rhetoric from Republican lawmakers and far-right figures, as reported by The Independent.
Right-wing Arizona caucus leader says staffer was ‘threatening to shoot people Democrats disagree with less than 12 hours after Nashville shooting’
Tennessee governor reveals Nashville shooting victim was friend and was due to have dinner with him that night
Rachel Sharp has more on Republican Bill Lee’s video last night in which he revealed that he and his wife were friends with shooting victims Katherine Koonce and Cynthia Peak and that the latter was due to have dinner with them on the night she was killed.
The Republican governor has loosened gun laws in the state since taking office
White House says Republicans ‘lack courage’ for meaningful gun reform
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre slammed Republicans’ lack of interest in enacting stronger gun laws on Wednesday in the wake of the recent mass shooting in Tennessee, calling their attitude “unacceptable”.
The White House added that the GOP lacks the fortitude to address the recurring horror of seeing children gunned down in their places of learning.
Ms Jean-Pierre was speaking to reporters at the daily White House press briefing when she was asked about Republican arguments that it’s impractical to enact the renewed assault weapons ban favoured by President Biden because 25m military-style semi-automatic weapons are currently in Americans’ homes.
Pressed on how the president would respond to that argument, she replied: “That’s unacceptable”.
White House press secretary says the lack of a response from the GOP is ‘unacceptable’