TRANSCRIPTION OF PRESS CONFERENCE
28TH MARCH
LE - Good afternoon, I'm Don Aaron with the Nashville Police Department. We want to give you a brief update this afternoon, as to what we know about the Covenant murders, yesterday. There's one rumour going on throughout the community that we want to take a moment to clear up. There are those who think that specific individuals were targeted by the shooter who entered the building on Monday. We have no evidence that individuals were specifically targeted. This school, this church building, was a target of the shooter, but we have no information, at present, to indicate that the shooter was specifically targeting any one of the 6 individuals who were murdered. Chief John Drake will now update you on the progress of the investigation, overnight, and this morning, including what we know about the individual's purchases of firearms over the past couple of years. Again, this will be a brief briefing today. Chief John Drake.
CHIEF - Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you again for being here. Just a brief update. What we know right now. We've interviewed the parents of Audrey Hale, and we've determined that Audrey bought seven firearms from five different local gun stores, here, legally; they were legally purchased. Three of those weapons were used yesterday during this horrific tragedy that happened. We know that they felt that she had one weapon and that she sold it. She was under care, doctor's care for an emotional disorder. Law enforcement knew nothing about the treatment she was receiving, but her parent's felt that she should not own weapons, they were under the impression that when she sold the one weapon that she did not own any more. As it turned out, she had been hiding several weapons within the house. We also don't have a motive, at this time. We feel that these students that were targeted were randomly targeted. There was not any particular student that she was looking for, at the time of the incident. And that's what we know as I speak, and we'll take any questions.
REPORTER - What was in that manifesto?
CHIEF - So, in the manifesto, there's several different writings about other locations, there was talks about the school, there was a map of the school, a drawing of how potentially she would enter and the assaults that would take place. It's quite a bit of writing to it, I have not read the whole entire manifesto. Our team and the FBI has been working on this.
REPORTER - Chief, can you say where exactly the victims were located? you said the common area, were they all together, the students and the adults?
CHIEF - So, they were spread out in different locations. When I went into the actual Church, the kids had already been transported to the hospital. Also, the two other adults, I did see the head school person and she was in the hallway by the office. They were spread out they weren't in one common area, but they were spread out.
REPORTER - Can you talk about (
inaudible) in terms of targeting other buildings, other places?
CHIEF - There was some writings in the manifesto about other locations, but as far as it being an actual target, I can't confirm that at this time.
REPORTER - About the 6 victims who were killed - Where exactly were they? Were they walking through the hallway when it happened? and I also heard, perhaps, the head of the school may have ran towards the shooter?
CHIEF - It's very possible the head of the school could have done that, I can't confirm that one way or the other. I do know she was in the hallway by herself, there was a confrontation, I'm sure. You can tell the way she was laying in the hallway. There was the custodian, the African American as she shot through the door to enter. She sprayed rounds through the glass, striking him, you can see where he came to rest. As far as the others, they were just spread out in different locations. I can't say it was a confrontation, but she met the head person in the hallway.
REPORTER - Chief, you mentioned the guns, the multiple guns and that the shooter was under the care of a doctor. Is there any law in this state that would have allowed police to take those guns away from this person, had it been reported?
CHIEF - If it had been reported, there's not a law for that, but had it been reported that she was suicidal, or that she was going to kill someone, and had been made known to us, then we would have tried to get those weapons but, as it stands, we had absolutely no idea actually who this person was, if she even existed.
REPORTER - What else did the parents say? Did they expect anything like this to happen?
CHIEF - So we know, yesterday, Miss Hale was leaving out of the residence, she had a red bag. They asked her what was in the red bag and I think she just dismissed it because it was a motherly thing and didn't look in the back because, at the time, she didn't know that her daughter had any weapons and didn't think any differently. Again, they lost a child. So it's very traumatic for them.
REPORTER - Can you talk about the police response? I know they engaged the shooter pretty quickly, once they got to the school, but can you talk about the events that led up from when they got the call? What time did they arrive at the school? and could you talk about that time, it's like 14 minutes or so?
CHIEF - Yeah, so they got the call at 10:13 and by 10:24 they had engaged the suspect. As they arrived on the property there were police cars being hit by gunfire. The suspect was in an upper level. We believe there has been some training of being able to shoot from a higher level and her gunfire.. from the video I've seen, she stood away from the glass so she wouldn't be an easy target to be shot. But as officers were approaching the building, there was gunfire going on. They went in, they went through door by door, as we clear buildings. They heard gunfire and immediately ran to that and then took care of this horrible situation.
REPORTER - And how long did it take officers to actually get to the school, initially, from when the first call came in.
CHIEF - From the time it went out from 10:13 to 10:24 it was over. The exact time.. arrival time - I'm not sure I know that, myself, I ran emergency and as I got there, they were coming out, bloody and all kinds of things were happening. And so, I barely missed being able or being there to go in as well. So it was really quick, the response.
REPORTER - I was going to ask you about the two officers on scene, have they every been placed in a situation like that before?
CHIEF - To my knowledge, I do not remember if those two, in particular, have been in that situation. Also Kalozo (?) has worked as a paramedic with the SWAT team, so I'm sure he's had some type of weapons training. I was really impressed that with all that was going on, the danger, that somebody took control and said let's go let's go let's go and went in and took care and just tried to end this situation, but as far as being in this before, I'm unsure.
REPORTER - A friend of the Hale family have reportedly said that Audrey was autistic. Can you speak to that? Do you know if that's true?
CHIEF - I can't confirm that. I've heard that, but I can't confirm if that's true or not.
REPORTER - Do you have any indication of the significance of yesterday, why the shooter may have done this yesterday? and also, do you have anything that could indicate whether the school was targeted (
inaudible)?
CHIEF - I can't confirm, either. Not sure if that.. we're approaching a holy period at Easter and all of that. I can't confirm any of that, I do not know and so why she targeted that particular church - we do know she was a student at that church, at one point, but unsure right now if that was the reason.
REPORTER - The two officers who were there, how are they feeling today, 24 hrs. on?
CHIEF - So, I talked to them earlier and they're trying to decompress, trying to make sense of all of this. I've talked to President Biden, he's going to reach out and talk to them as well. They're just trying to do whatever they can with their families, and just kind of remove themselves from all of this.
REPORTER - The response time (
inaudible) getting to the school, is that acceptable? Is that something you want to look back at and see if there could have been a quicker response time?
CHIEF - We evaluate each and every situation and so, one of my principles is - we're always looking to be innovative and evolving to get better and so we look at every single incident we have and if there's a way to get better... we feel the response right now, from what I've seen, I don't have a particular problem with it, but we always want to get better. We always want to get there in two or three minutes and so there's a lot of things that could have happened, traffic was locked down etc. but we're always looking to get better.
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