Nashville school shooting – live: Evelyn Dieckhaus called ‘shining light’ as first funeral takes place

Shooter Audrey Hale’s manifesto is still to be released by Nashville police

Bodycam footage shows Nashville police searching Christian school for gunman

The funeral of Evelyn Dieckhaus, one of three nine-year-old children killed at the Covenant School shooting, took place on Friday afternoon in Nashville.

Evelyn was remembered as a “shining light” in the funeral, which was closed to the media, at the Woodmont Christian Church in the Green Hills neighbourhood of the city.

Before the service, the church’s senior minister, the Rev Clay Stauffer, described the youngster as “radiant.”

Evelyn was killed while leading her classmates to safety in response to a fire alarm seemingly tripped by the attacker, her family believes.

Services for substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, and Hallie Scruggs, nine, will be held on Saturday. Nine-year-old William Kinney's funeral will take place on Sunday, while services for Mike Hill, 61, the school’s custodian, will be held on Tuesday and the funeral for head of school Katherine Koonce, 60, will take place on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, police have released the chilling 911 calls they received from inside the Covenant School as the shooter – since identified by law enforcement as Audrey Hale, 28, a former student of the private Christian elementary school – broke into the building and opened fire.

A manifesto written by the suspect is soon expected to released by officers investigating the deadly attack.

Key Points

• Student victim gunned down while leading friends to safety, family says
• First funerals of Nashville victims to take place
• Hundreds demand gun reform at Tennessee State Capitol
• Nashville shooting 911 calls capture terror inside school: ‘I’m hearing more shots, please hurry!’
• Audrey Hale’s manifesto ‘set to be released’ as motive speculation mounts

[1 April 2023 01:32 · Graeme Massie]

America’s gun lobby counts major legislative victories after Nashville. Republicans shrug off reform

State lawmakers across the country are making it easier to buy and carry guns, while GOP members of Congress insist there’s nothing they can do to stop gun violence, Alex Woodward reports.

[1 April 2023 02:06 · Graeme Massie]

Democrat and Republican in Capitol shouting match over gun safety

Two opposing US congressmen drew crowds of onlookers as they engaged in a blazing argument this week over gun control in the wake of the Nashville school shooting.

New York Democrat Jamaal Bowman, himself a former teacher, had been giving a furious speech to reporters in a corridor outside the House of Representatives, accusing the Republicans of inaction.

“They’re cowards. They’re all cowards! They won’t do anything to save the lives of our children,” yelled Mr Bowman, a former school principal.

Kentucky GOP representative Thomas Massie then tried to butt in, prompting a shouting match between the two men.

[1 April 2023 03:10 · Graeme Massie]

Some staff members at Nashville school were armed, 911 call reveals

A woman who called 911 while hiding under a desk during Monday’s shooting told the dispatcher that one or two staff members on site were carrying guns, The Tennessean reported on Thursday, a detail not previously known.

The revelation came as officials released two dozen 911 calls and recordings of emergency dispatches from the attack.

[1 April 2023 04:04 · Graeme Massie]

What we know about the victims of the Nashville school shooting

As the first funerals from Monday’s atrocity begin to take place, here is everything we know about those who lost their lives.

[1 April 2023 05:02 · Graeme Massie]

Despite school shooting, Tennessee's gun laws likely to remain lax

As Nashville residents reel from the fatal grade school shooting that left six dead, a federal judge has quietly cleared the way to drop the minimum age for Tennesseans to carry handguns publicly without a permit to 18 — just two years after a new law set the age at 21.

The move marked yet another relaxation of gun laws in ruby-red Tennessee, where Republican leaders have steadily chipped away at firearms regulations and lambasted those who have warned that doing so comes at a cost.

[1 April 2023 06:06 · Graeme Massie]

After school shooting, some trans Tennesseans face backlash

When Nashville police announced that the shooter who killed three children and three adults at a school this week was transgender, trans Tennesseans braced themselves for renewed vitriol in a state that has recently proposed a raft of anti-trans laws.

Soon enough, some prominent Republicans, including JD Vance, a senator from Ohio, and representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, suggested in social media posts that the shooter’s gender identity may have been a factor in the murders.

Police later said they did not know the shooter’s gender identity.

Even before the shooting, many transgender Tennesseans felt villainised by their state’s efforts to regulate the lives of gay and trans people, and were increasingly fearful for their safety.

“This isn’t a trans issue, this is a gun issue,” said Mykul Coscia, a drag king at Nashville’s Play Dance Bar, an LGTBQ nightclub. “But they’re gonna make it a trans issue.”

Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature recently banned gender-affirming medical care, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for anyone under 18, despite US medical associations saying such treatment can save lives.

It also restricted drag shows in public in an ambiguously worded law taking effect this weekend that includes “male or female impersonators” in the same X-rated category as strippers. As that bill progressed, armed neo-Nazis and other far-right groups protested outside drag shows in the state.

Audrey Hale (MNPD)

The Tennessee bills are part of a broader anti-trans push by Republicans in conservative states who argue they are protecting children.

Coscia has a seven-year-old daughter going to a Nashville-area school and said he was never worried about doctors or drag queens harming children. But he does live in fear of school shootings, which have become commonplace in the US, where guns are easily obtained.

Last year, the Supreme Court declared for the first time that the US Constitution protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defence.

Even as a gun owner himself, he wants lawmakers to make it harder to get hold of guns and to ban the kind of semi-automatic rifle used in many school shootings, including Monday’s at the Covenant School.

The vast majority of mass shootings in the US are committed by non-trans men, according to Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a non-profit group advocating for stricter gun regulation.

Grayson Collins, a trans man raising a three-year-old daughter with his wife in a Nashville suburb, said the gender identity of a mass shooter was irrelevant.

“It’s evil,” he said. “I could care less who they are or what they are. You still took someone’s life and that’s horrible.”

Reuters

[1 April 2023 07:07 · Graeme Massie]

Nashville shooting timeline: How the Tennessee massacre unfolded

Here’s a timely recap, should you need it.

America suffered its latest outbreak of deadly gun violence on Monday morning when a shooter broke into The Covenant School in the Green Hills suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, and shot dead six people, including three children aged nine.

Police arrived quickly at the scene and shot dead the suspect, later named as Audrey Hale, 28, a former student at the private Christian elementary school.

The three child victims were identified as students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney.

Head teacher Katherine Koonce, 60, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak and custodian Mike Hill, both 61, were also killed.

[1 April 2023 08:32 · Graeme Massie]

Parkland dad calls for national education strike after Nashville

The father of a Parkland shooting victim who was violently arrested at US Capitol has called for a national education strike in response to the Nashville shooting.

Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son Joaquin was one of 17 people fatally shot at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, has called for “extreme measures” to prevent further gun violence in the US.

“I want to go in a more challenging, disruptive direction. I think we have been very polite,” he told ABC News this week.

“My tolerance after losing my son has been handled in the best possible way, but this is like too much.

“I keep looking at this inaction from our representatives, and only action when someone like me – and there are thousands like me - decide to disrupt and to raise our voices over our loved ones, then they do something, then they arrest me, other than that they won’t do anything.

“So, we have to take extreme measures, for this. We are calling for a national education strike at all levels of education, and I hope that we can achieve these kind of movements out there sooner rather than later.”

[1 April 2023 11:04 · Graeme Massie]

In video: Chilling 911 call captures terrified caller inside Nashville school during shooting

[1 April 2023 12:02 · Graeme Massie]

Heroic headteacher ended Zoom call and ran towards shooter during Nashville school massacre

Heroic headteacher Katherine Koonce ran towards the shooter during the Nashville school massacre before the killer “assassinated” her in a hallway, it has been revealed.

Nashville City councilman Russ Pulley told Fox News that Koonce, 60, was on a Zoom call when she learned that there was an active shooting situation inside The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.