11 months later: Nashville police response to Covenant School shooting remains secret, leaving lessons unlearned
Ten minutes passed--6 minutes longer than Uvalde--between the first 911 call and the first officer entering the school. Almost a year later, no official report or timeline has been released.
This article started on April 6, 2023 when my information request to the Nashville Police Department was ignored. Local reporters that I’ve spoken with have also had their requests ignored. I was bothered by how the timeline and bodycam video don’t add up. Watching the Frontline documentary on Uvalde and hearing the police chief’s comments after the shooting at UNLV prompted even more questions.
Uvalde is widely considered to be an abject failure, yet officers in Texas entered the school building six minutes faster than officers in Nashville.
On the day of the shooting at University of Las Vegas, the police chief proudly stated that officers went into the building without hesitation and stopped the shooter. Three weeks later when body camera footage was released to the public, reporters noticed that officers ran past the assailant and then ushered the shooter out of the building. The attack was only stopped when the assailant charged directly at an officer standing outside.
Bodycam showed the chief’s statement in the immediate aftermath was not true.
Knowing the facts of what happened during each school shooting response is critical for other schools and police to know how to respond better in the future. How can schools across the country best protect their students when we don’t know what went right or wrong during prior attacks?
“They didn’t hesitate at all”
The morning after the shooting at the Covenant School, the Nashville Chief John Drake went on Good Morning America and said “they trained for that. And this moment happened and they didn’t hesitate at all.”
That same day (March 28), the Nashville Police Department released heavily edited bodycam footage (available on their official YouTube) of officers running through the school and killing the shooter. It’s rare to release this footage so quickly showing the killing of a mass shooter. Typically the public never sees this footage, which make this initial release so odd.
The officers shown in the footage have been hailed as heroes with multiple award ceremonies, including the Fox Nation Patriot Award.
Incomplete Timeline
The last official update was posted by the Nashville Police Department on April 3, 2023. It is now 11 months since the attack and no official report is available. When photos from the crime scene were leaked in November 2023, the Nashville Police Department was unable to determine which officer was responsible.
From the minimal info that is available, there is a very important question that needs to be answered.
What was going on during the 10 minutes between the first 911 call and the first officer entering the school?
10:13 am: Nashville Police receive the first call of an active shooter inside Covenant School.
10:23 am: The first officers enter the school. Police body-worn camera footage shows officers going room-to-room looking for the shooter, clearing classrooms, and speeding past at least one body in a hallway.
10:27 am: The suspected shooter is declared dead.
By comparison in rural Uvalde, TX—even with no incident commander directing operations—multiple officers were inside the school less than 4 minutes after the first shots were fired.
Altered Bodycam Footage
It’s typical for police bodycam footage to be edited or censored before public release to remove images of victims or graphic violence. It is abnormal for the video to cropped/altered to remove the time stamps.
In the altered Nashville police bodycam footage, there are at least five police cars visible outside when Officer Rex Engelbert—who drove from his office at the training academy—gets a key and opens the door.
In the press conference (April 4) with the officers (including Officer Engelbert), they describe leaving their office, driving ~10 miles to the school (3x the distance from downtown to the school), and unlocking the door.
Covenant School is 3 miles from Downtown and Music Row; there were likely patrol officers on scene within the first 2-3 minutes.
Why hasn’t an official timeline been released that details when each officer arrived at the school?
Did patrol officers wait outside until tactical officers arrived?
If patrol officers were not at the school within 2-3 minutes, what delayed their response?
I’ve studied the responses to hundreds of shootings at schools over the last six decades. In a major metro area, 14 minutes from the first 911 call to officers engaging the shooter is not a rapid response.
Why was the footage altered?
Standard police body camera recordings have the date, time, officer ID, department logo, manufacture, and file number (upper left and right of the image).
Footage released by the Nashville Police Department was cropped to remove the timestamps and other info. From the brief timeline that is available, Officer Engelbert entered the school at 10:23am and the shooter was killed at 10:27am. In the altered video, Office Engelbert enters the school at 1:11 in the video and officers yell the shooter is down at 3:31.
Why is only 140 seconds of the 240 seconds of total footage shown?
For comparison, the Allen, TX police department released unedited body camera footage showing an officer talking to customers in an outlet mall parking lot, hearing gunshots, radioing in the gunshots, and then running for almost 5 minutes before killing the shooter.
Providing the uncut and uncropped video with time stamps is transparent.
Unanswered Questions and Accountability
How many officers arrived at the school before Officer Engelbert unlocked the front door?
How long had those officers been waiting outside?
Why has the body camera footage been cropped to remove the timestamps?
What happened in the 100 seconds of missing footage?
Does unreleased footage show Nashville officers standing outside and in the hallways (like Uvalde)?
The public needs to know what happened during the 14 minutes between the first 911 call and the shooter being killed because this lack of transparency raises questions.
When the Nashville police chief said “they didn’t hesitate at all”, is that statement true for the first officers who arrived at the school? The cover story of The Atlantic this week investigates why “The Coward of Broward” stayed outside in Parkland, FL. The article questions if regular patrol officers across the country are really prepared to engage an active shooter on their own. Is Nashville another example of this problem?
If the first arriving patrol officers in Nashville were also unwilling to enter the school before officers with tactical training arrived, this is a trend that needs to be addressed.
With safety issues, the public demands information and accountability. When the door blows open on a Boeing 737 jet, the planes get grounded, a report is published, and we know exactly what happened—and how the problems will be fixed.
When kids are slaughtered inside a school, we get very little information and failures are hidden instead of addressed. This is unacceptable.
David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database and a national expert on school shootings. Listen to my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and Iowa Public Radio the day after the Perry High shooting.