Audrey Hale, 28, the Nahsville gunwoman who killed three children and three adults at a Nashville religious school on Monday, had identified with masculine pronouns for a few months.
Metropolitan Police Chief John Drake explained that he was under medical care "for emotional disturbance."
This didn't stop him from legally buying seven guns, at five different stores in the past two years, Drake said. The parents stated that they did not think his daughter had any weapons.
She died shot by the officers' shots. The police found among Hale's possessions a manifesto, with maps of the school, illustrated by Hale herself as her graphic designer.
Apparently, in this document still under analysis, the state of dissatisfaction of this woman who now described herself as a man would be included. That includes her action at the Covenant School, where she studied as a child, as the first stage of a "calculated and planned" plan to spread her killing to other fucking parts of the city. According to Drake, the school was the target, but not specific people. She still doesn't know why.
Shortly before starting her deadly assault, Hale sent a grim message to a friend on Instagram. "I plan to die today," she confessed to Averianna Patton, she explained in statements to the media. “This is not a joke,” she added.
And there was another confession: “You will hear about me from the news after my death. This is my last goodbye, I love you, I will see you again in the next life. This sent him off just 16 minutes before the police received the first tip.
“We have a lot to live for,” Patton replied. “I'm sorry,” Hale replied, “I'm not trying to worry you or get your attention. I just need to die." He still explained that his family did not know anything about "what I am going to do." And he reiterated that "one more day would not make sense, I have left behind a lot of evidence, but something bad is going to happen." Patton took that communication seriously, knowing that Hale had previously made such confessions to other colleagues. He contacted the suicide hotline and the county sheriff's office.
Too late. After publishing on Monday night the images of Hale's entry into the school, with a clean shot, hunting for his prey, the police released this Tuesday the recording of the police operation in which it is seen how the gunman fell under the bullets from his pursuers. The images are disturbing. In the midst of the noise of the alarms, it seems like a movie, but it is real. The policemen enter and he is checking the spaces, until they hear shots on the upper floor. Hale is in front of a large window, where she died.
The police operation received congratulations. However, 14 minutes elapsed between the alert and the release, partly because Hale met them by shooting at the cars from the top of the building. "The agents acted quickly but these weapons are much faster," lamented John Cooper, mayor of Nashville.
Those weapons are the two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles. President Joe Biden reiterated the need to ban these assault weapons from the streets. "Congress has to act, the majority of citizens want that ban," he said.
