First Lady Jill Biden is traveling to Nashville today to attend the citywide candlelight vigil at One Public Square Park to “mourn and honor the lives of the victims, and lift up the survivors and families of The Covenant School,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced on Twitter.
Honored that @FLOTUS will attend this evening’s vigil as Nashville mourns and remembers the lives tragically taken from us. https://t.co/PeMOSuJgFw
— Mayor John Cooper (@JohnCooper4Nash) March 29, 2023
The candlelight vigil comes just two days after six victims, including three children, were gunned down by 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale at The Covenant School in the Green Hills neighborhood.
Another school shooting. I am truly without words — our children deserve better.
We stand — all of us — with Nashville.
— Jill Biden (@FLOTUS) March 27, 2023
Monday night, the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) released surveillance footage of Hale arriving on campus and shooting her way into the school through doors on the side of the building. Hale, according to MNPD, was armed with two assault-type guns and a 9-millimeter pistol.
Body camera footage released Tuesday morning worn by two MNPD officers showed the moment officers entered the school, began clearing the building, and running to the sound of gunfire coming from the second story, where they encountered and fatally wounded Hale.
MNPD Officers Rex Engelbert, a 4-year veteran, and Michael Collazo, a 9-year veteran, were part of a team of first responders to the Covenant campus Mon morning. They fired on the active shooter, who was killed. This is their body camera footage. https://t.co/17qsZM6bNp pic.twitter.com/g4b0nMTFRD
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) March 28, 2023
MNPD announced shortly after the shooting that it had recovered writings from Hale that indicated the attack on the school and church was “calculated and planned.”
Hale was under doctor’s care for an emotional disorder, MNPD Chief John Drake revealed on Tuesday. He also confirmed Monday that Hale identified as transgender.
Hours after the shooting, President Biden falsely claimed that Hale used “two AK-47s” in the attack, adding, “So I call on Congress, again, to pass my assault weapons ban. It’s about time that we begin to make some more progress.”
Biden added that more has to be done to “protect our schools so they aren’t turned into prisons.”
In addition, during Monday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated:
How many more children have — have to be murdered before Republicans in Congress will step up and act to pass the assault weapons ban; to close loopholes in our background — in our — in our background check system; or to require the safe storage of guns?
We need to do something. Once again, the President calls on Congress to do something before another child is senselessly killed in a preventable act of gun violence. Again, we need to do something.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Jill Biden” by Jill Biden.
Joe Biden couldn’t tell an AK-47 from a Boeing 747. He spouts so many lies it is sickening.
It seems that any and all reporting of a shooting with some type of rifle is automatically declared to have been done by an assault rifle. I figure most of the dumb clucks reporting have no idea what an assault rifle might be. Just a bunch of lemmings repeating what they hear.
I’ll bet she stumps for the ban on the ownership of firearms.