Nashville Shooter Had ‘Emotional Disorder' and Parents Didn't Want 28-Year-Old Owning Guns, Police Say
Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Tennessee does not have a "red flag" law, so police did not have the power to take the weapons away
By Staff and AP • Published March 28, 2023 • Updated on March 28, 2023 at 2:12 pm
The
Nashville school shooter legally bought seven firearms in recent years and hid the guns from their parents before the attack at a Christian school
where the suspect killed three children and three adults, police said Tuesday.
Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said the suspect, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, purchased the guns from five different gun stores in Nashville. Three of the guns were used during Monday's massacre at The Covenant School.
Drake said investigators spoke to the shooter's parents, who revealed Hale was under a doctor's care for an undisclosed emotional disorder. The parents shared with investigators that they previously voiced concerns about Hale owning firearms due to her condition. They told police they knew Hale had purchased and sold one weapon, but were not aware that the shooter had been hiding several more at home.
Drake said Tennessee does not have a "red flag" law, so police did not have the power to take the weapons away. Red flag laws allow a concerned person or people to make an appeal to a court to temporarily restrict someone’s ability to purchase or own a gun when there is a concern for their own safety or the safety of others.
It is not clear when the shooter was diagnosed with an emotional disorder and whether they purchased guns after beginning treatment. But since the guns were legally purchased and registered to them, a court order would have revealed the full stock of weapons in their possession for police to confiscate.
In the aftermath of the mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school, several states passed "red flag" laws allowing concerned parties to intervene. At the time, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee
signed an executive ordered aimed at enhancing school safety but stopped short of passing any new gun restrictions in the state.
"We’re not looking at gun restriction laws in my administration right now. Criminals don’t follow laws, criminals break laws. Whether they are a gun law, a drug law, criminals break laws,” Lee said at the time. “We can’t control what they do.”
Republicans, who hold the majority in the Tennessee statehouse, have also opposed red flag laws. State Rep. Jeremy Faison, the chairman of the House Republican caucus, questioned the effectiveness of red flag laws in a statement to
NBC affiliate WKRN.
“From my perspective, red flag laws appear unconstitutional or ineffective," Faison said last year. "Forcibly taking someone’s gun from their house without due process creates a hostile environment for law enforcement and potentially criminalizes law abiding citizens. I am interested in how we can better equip our local schools and how we can do better with mental illness.”
Monday's violence at the private Presbyterian school is the
latest school shooting to roil the nation.
Three 9-year-old students were killed, as well as the head of the grade school, a custodian and a substitute teacher. Authorities said the shooter did not target specific victims.
Drake did not say exactly what drove Hale but said in an interview with NBC News that investigators believe the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to that school.” On Tuesday, he reiterated that the building was the shooter's intended target, and stressed that there is no evidence that the victims were specifically targeted.
Drake provided chilling examples of the shooter’s elaborate planning for the targeted attack, the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country that has grown increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.
“We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident,” he told reporters. “We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place.”
Police have given unclear information on Hale's gender. For hours Monday, police identified the shooter as a woman. At a late afternoon press conference, the police chief said Hale was transgender. After the news conference, police spokesperson Don Aaron declined to elaborate on how Hale identified.
In an email Tuesday, police spokesperson Kristin Mumford said Hale “was assigned female at birth. Hale did use male pronouns on a social media profile.”
