Official report on the Covenant School shooting in Nashville
Two years after the attack, Nashville Police released a 50-page report with new images and a revised timeline.
Two years after the Covenant School shooting, Police Chief John Drake announced the closure of the investigation and the Nashville Police Department released a 48-page report. The findings include:
No other people were involved or will be held responsible. Her parents took reasonable steps to try to get her mental healthcare and firearms sellers conducted the required criminal background checks.
She was sane at the time of the shooting.
There were no known prior interactions between the victims and Hale.
Hale bore no grudge against the school or staff. She considered them as "innocents" and victims on par with herself.
She had a personal connection to the school from earlier in her life and felt she had to die somewhere that made her happy.
After shooting the first 6 victims, Hale walked around the school for ~12 minutes without shooting anyone else despite multiple occupied classrooms with unlocked doors in her immediate vicinity.
Police determined that notoriety was her primary motive because she left material behind intentionally to be found and analyzed. She wanted:
Material to be publicly released and commented upon.
Books, documentaries, movies to be made about her life and her attack.
Her firearms to be placed in a museum.
Her bedroom to be left as it was when the attack occurred as a memorial to her.
To mentor other shooters to show how they could succeed with proper planning.
To show off her superiority to others.
Hale studied material from the Columbine High School prior to committing her attacks. She left behind is her detailed plan with timelines and diagrams. This is a reminded that school shootings are not random or spontaneous acts of violence, so spotting the warning signs and planning process can prevent an attack.
Gunsmoke triggered a fire alarm
The attack started when Hale shot her way through glass doors to enter the building. A smoke detector in the entryway was activated by the rifle smoke from her AR-15 and that set off the firearm.
Michael Hill, a custodian, was the first victim killed. He heard the glass break, walked into the lobby, and then fled when he saw Hale carrying multiple firearms. Hill was fatally shot multiple times in the back as he ran away.
Because of the fire alarm, classes started to evacuate. Substitute teacher Cynthia Peak was in the school office when students started heading towards the stairs to evacuate. She let 3 students (Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and Hallie Scruggs) go ahead of her into the stairwell. Hale was coming up the same stairs, opened fire, and fatally shot all four of them at the top of the stairs.
When students and staff heard the gunfire, some of them stopped evacuating and returned to their classrooms.
Hale then fired a full magazine of rounds through a locked classroom door and window. She then reloaded and fired a full magazine through a second classroom door and window. She didn’t attempt to enter either classroom and kept walking.
Dr. Koonce, the principal, was also walking near the office. She turned a corner and came face-to-face with Hale. She verbally challenged Hale and asked her what she was doing inside the school. Hale shot Dr. Koonce multiple times with her AR rifle then switched to a pistol to shoot her again.
After fatally shooting Dr. Koonce, Hale started walking randomly around the building for about 10 minutes. She walked past multiple rooms were occupied by students with doors that were unlocked, but she didn’t attempt to enter any of them.
When she got to the kindergarten hallway, she fired three shots at a TV set and fired shots at the door. The door was unlocked and students were inside but she didn’t attempt to enter the room.
She then walked into the sanctuary in the church side of the building (the school is multiple attached buildings) and fired shots at the stained-glass window.
All of this took place between 10:10am and 10:20am before the first police officer entered the school.
Police Arrive at the School
At 10:20am (10 minutes after the first shots), police entered the school. Hale was on the second floor and started firing from the window at the arriving officers. This caused officers to take cover behind their cars.
Even though she was firing from a elevated position, Hale didn’t strike any officers. Two police cars were hit and had their tires flattened.
Hale continued to fire at police from the window as other officers were able to enter from the other side of the building.
Police believe that because she was wearing earplugs and the fire alarm was sounding, she didn’t hear officers walk up behind her.
Hale was struck by a round fired from a distance across the atrium, fell to the floor, and then fatally shot at close range when she reached for her pistol.
During the 14-17 minutes (note: prior police report said she was killed at 10:27am, this report listed 10:24am) while she was inside the school before police killed her, Hale fired 152 bullets. She still had 272 additional rounds with her that were loaded in magazines.
Unanswered Questions
This new report potentially answers my biggest questions about this incident. When the Covenant School is near Downtown Nashville, I didn’t understand why it took police 10 minutes to enter the school. The first patrol officers should have been on the scene within 2-3 minutes.
The timeline in this new report has two confusing statements that make it unclear when the first patrol officers got to the school. I point this out because a tactical officer who drove all the way from the Nashville Police Academy was the first officer to unlock the door to the school.
1014 hours CDT: First police officers began their response to The Covenant in response to an active killer.
1019 hours CDT: The first police officers arrived at The Covenant and began seeking a way into the building.
1020 hours CDT: The first police officers entered the building
Based on this report, it appears that the first patrol officers to arrive took cover behind their cars in the parking lot because Hale was firing at them from the second floor of the school. Rather than looking for a way inside, they were taking cover outside. Did this sequence of events start at 10:14 am and it was 6 minutes before the first officer entered?
I don’t know why the Nashville Police Chief didn’t just say that 2 years ago. He made multiple statements that officers entered the school immediately without hesitation. Based on this report, the first patrol officers were taking cover rather than going inside the building. Is it right or wrong for police officers to protect themselves rather than running into the line of fire? That’s a topic for debate but it’s not what the police chief said happened that day.
My prior articles:
Motive, Background, and Clues
Hale left behind multiple phones, laptops, USB drives, VHS video tapes (like Columbine), and notebooks that she intended to be found. In my next article, I’ll analyze this evidence and how it follows the patterns of planning in other school shootings.
David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.