The former student of a Christian grade school in Nashville who killed three 9-year-olds and three adults in a shooting spree was under a doctor’s care for an “emotional disorder” and had amassed a collection of guns, the city’s police chief said. New details about assailant Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, emerged. Authorities said they were still trying to pin down a motive as detectives pored over various writings and other evidence left by Hale.
Hale was armed with two assault-style weapons and a handgun, the latest in a long string of U.S. mass shootings that have turned schools into a killing zone raising questions over gun rights and regulations.
The three weapons used were among seven firearms that Hale had legally purchased in recent years from five Nashville-area stores, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake told reporters. Hale’s parents did not know that Hale possessed multiple firearms, mistakenly believing that Hale had owned just one gun, then sold it, Drake said. The chief added that the mother and father felt Hale should not have owned any weapons due to mental health concerns.
The mother, on seeing Hale leave the house with a red bag Monday morning, had questioned what was in the bag, the chief said. Hale “was under care, a doctor’s care, for an emotional disorder,” the chief told reporters during a news briefing, without elaborating. Under Tennessee law, mental illness is not grounds for police to confiscate weapons, unless a person is deemed mentally incompetent by a court, “judicially committed” to a mental institution,” or placed under a conservatorship “by reason of mental defect.”
Tennessee prohibits selling guns to persons found by a court or other legal authority to pose a danger to themselves or others, or lack the capacity to conduct their own affairs due to mental illness. But merely being under a doctor’s care would not, in itself, meet that threshold.
There have been 376 school shootings since Columbine and more than 348,000 students have experienced gun violence at school. The Post pieces together its numbers from news articles, open-source databases, law enforcement reports, and calls to schools and police departments. Few of the recent incidents are as follows:
- The Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn.
6 dead,0 injured.180 children present in school.
- East High School in Denver, Colo.
0 dead2 injured 2,400 children present in school
- Lamar High School in Arlington, Texas
1 dead1 injured 1,270 children present in school
- Palo Duro High School in Amarillo, Texas
0 dead1 injured 1,760 children present in school
- Westinghouse Academy in Pittsburgh, Penn.
0 dead4 injured630 children present in school
U.S. President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass an assault weapon ban after the recent incident. The White House said. “We have to do more to stop gun violence. It’s ripping our communities apart,” Biden said at the White House. “I call on Congress again to pass my assault weapons ban.”
