(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—In accordance with the order issued by the President of the United States of America and in remembrance of the victims of the school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, Governor DeWine has ordered that the flags of the United States and the State of Ohio shall be flown at half-staff upon all public buildings and grounds throughout the State of Ohio until sunset on March 31, 2023.
Chief John Drake and the men and women of the MNPD join all of Nashville in mourning today’s deaths of six innocent persons, three nine-year-old’s and three adults, at the hands of an active shooter at Covenant Church/School on Burton Hills Drive.
The deceased are identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and Hallie Scruggs, all age nine, Mike Hill, age 61, Cynthia Peak, age 61, and Katherine Koonce, ago 60.
The shooter, Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, who attended the school years ago, arrived on campus in her Honda Fit. She was heavily armed with three guns, two of them assault-type weapons, and, as seen in surveillance video, shot her way into the church/school through doors on the side of the building.
The first call to 911 about shots being fired in the building came in at 10:13 a.m. Officers rushed to the campus, made entry and began clearing the building. Shots were heard coming from the second level. It was on the second floor, in a common area, that a team of officers encountered Hale shooting (she had been firing through a window at arriving police cars). Two members of an officer team fired on Hale and fatally wounded her. Those two officers are Officer Rex Engelbert, a four-year MNPD veteran, and Officer Michael Collazo, a nine-year MNPD veteran.
Writings recovered from Hale revealed that her attack was calculated and planned.
A search warrant executed at Hale’s Brightwood Avenue home resulted in the seizure of a sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun, and other evidence.
The investigation by several MNPD components, with assistance from our partners at the TBI, FBI, ATF and THP, is continuing.
