Two school shootings. Two starkly different police responses

Once again America is mourning the death of children, shot dead in what was supposed to be the safety of their school.

This time it was in a Christian primary school in Nashville, Tennessee. Ten months earlier, it was in a school in Uvalde, Texas.

But the police response to the two school shootings could not have been more different.

In Uvalde, it took authorities one hour, 14 minutes and 8 seconds before they entered the classroom and killed the shooter.

In that time, 19 children and two teachers were gunned down.

While officers in Uvalde huddled outside the classroom in Robb Elementary for more than an hour, police in Nashville police wasted no time, killing the shooter, Audrey Hale, 28, within 14 minutes of receiving the first 911 call.

Bodycam footage shows how Nashville police officers rushed into The Covenant School and efficiently ended the attack.

The small team of officers, some not even equipped with protective headgear, first cleared the ground floor before hearing gunshots upstairs, in what one law enforcement expert described as a “textbook” response.

“They're working as a team,” explained Marko Galbreath, a retired Daytona Beach police officer who now runs a company that trains in shooting scenarios. “They're kind of leapfrogging off each other as a team and as a prepared response.”

Working in unison with colleagues, Officer Rex Engelbert entered the room from which the shots were coming. He fired four quick shots at the suspect, ending the threat with remarkable speed. Mr Galbreath said he would use their example to teach others how to respond to mass shootings.

“They held it together and they did what they needed to do,” he told The National.

KEY MOMENTS

How the shootings unfolded
over 17 minutes

NASHVILLE: MARCH 27, 2023

10:10am
Hale breaks into the school by smashing the glass doors with gunfire.

CCTV cameras filmed a heavily armed Audrey Hale entering a school in Nashville on Monday. Getty Images

10:13am
First call to 911 is made. Officers are sent to The Covenant School.

10:20am
Security footage shows Hale carrying two assault-style weapons and a handgun while opening doors to classrooms and searching for victims. Hale is wearing a red baseball cap, body armour and camouflage trousers.

10:24am
Officers arrive at The Covenant School.

Bodycam footage released by Nashville Metro Police shows Officer Rex Engelbert shouting "Let's go," before opening the doors to the school.

Mr Engelbert and four other police officers search the halls on the school's first floor.

"Sounds like it's upstairs," one officer says to Mr Engelbert, who proceeds to the second floor.

As the Nashville officers methodically cleared rooms, their voices remained calm. Mr Engelbert’s breathing was heavy but controlled and he held his rifle steady.

That’s no easy feat, said Mr Galbreath.

“They hear gunfire, they hear screaming,” he said. “We call it sensory overload and that's what they're going through. But yet these officers, through training, got past all of that and did what they needed to do."

Police officers and officials at The Covenant School after the shooting. EPA

10:24-10:26am
Mr Engelbert and other officers follow the sounds of gunfire as they converge on the shooter in a lobby-type area on the second floor.

10:27am
Hale is shot dead by officers Engelbert and Michael Collazo.

CCTV cameras filmed a heavily armed Audrey Hale entering a school in Nashville on Monday. Getty Images

Police officers and officials at The Covenant School after the shooting. EPA

A memorial at Robb Elementary School, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas in May 2022

UVALDE: MAY 24, 2022

11:32am
Robb Elementary is placed on lockdown after Salvador Ramos breaches the perimeter and fires several shots outside the school.

A memorial at Robb Elementary School, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas in May 2022

11:33am
The gunman enters the north-west side of the west building and proceeds to Rooms 111 and 112. He fires more than 100 rounds in a two-and-a-half minute span between the two rooms. It was in this timeframe that he killed "many innocent victims", A Texas House committee reported.

“Of the approximately 142 rounds the attacker fired inside the building, it is almost certain that he rapidly fired over 100 of those rounds before any officer entered," the Texas committee reported on the shooting in Robb Elementary, Uvalde.

11:37am
The officers converge from both sides of the hallways on Rooms 111 and 112. One officer peers into the vestibule for the rooms and faces gunfire. He and another officer are struck by building fragments. Law enforcement did not fire towards the gunman.

Eleven officers were in the building at this time.

It is also likely that one bullet passed through one of the walls and struck Elsa Avila, a teacher, in Room 109.

Emergency officials at Robb Elementary School following the shooting. Getty Images

11:38am
Uvalde schools police Chief Pete Arredondo checks in on Room 110, which had holes in the wall but was vacant. He immediately considered the shooter to be a "barricaded subject" instead of an "active shooter".

One officer can be heard on bodycam footage saying, "Dude, we’ve got to get in there. We’ve got to get in there, he [Ramos] just keeps shooting. We’ve got to get in there."

11:40am
Chief Arredondo calls Uvalde police. Phone records released by the committee show that he requested additional firepower and back-up.

Emergency officials at Robb Elementary School following the shooting. Getty Images

11:42am
Officers begin evacuating students from other classrooms. Chief Arredondo found another unlocked classroom on the east side of the building with a teacher and pupils. He told them to stay down.

Sgt Daniel Coronado requested additional support from the police department and the Department of Public Safety. He said the shooter was "contained" inside the school and "barricaded in one of the offices", although it is now known he was inside a classroom.

When asked if there were pupils inside Room 112, a voice responded on the radio saying "the class should be in session".

11:48am
Officer Ruben Ruiz is restrained as he tells his colleagues that his wife, Eva Mireles, was in the classrooms with the shooter. Bodycam footage captures him saying: "She says she's been shot," as he walks towards the door with his gun drawn.

It took another 55 minutes before police entered the classroom and killed Ramos. During that time, Chief Arredondo frantically searched for the school's master keys and officers continued to evacuate children from other classrooms. A child inside the classroom called 911 several times and parents were restrained by police officers from rushing to protect their children.

Ms Mireles died from her gunshot wounds as she was being taken to hospital.

"Given the information known about the victims who survived through the time of the breach and who later died on the way to the hospital, it is plausible that some victims could have survived if they had not had to wait 73 additional minutes for rescue," the committee reported.

The stark contrast between the two responses further exposes just how poorly police reacted in Uvalde, Texas, in the second deadliest school shooting in US history, behind Sandy Hook in 2012.

Law-enforcement experts preach speed in active shooter situations, and that appears to be exactly how police in Nashville responded, eliminating the threat within minutes of the 911 call, limiting the death toll to six. Horrific though that toll is, it doesn't make the top 10 most deadly school and university shootings in US history.

Words Kyle Fitzgerald and Willy Lowry
Editor Thomas Watkins
Photo Editor Tim Knowles
Video Editor Joshua Longmore
Design Deepak Fernandez
Graphics Roy Cooper
Sub Editor Paul Stafford
Producer Juman Jarallah