Police says Nashville school shooter had ’emotional disorder’

The former student of a Christian grade school in Nashville who killed three 9-year-olds and three adults in a shooting spree according to city’s police chief was under a doctor’s care for an “emotional disorder” and had amassed a collection of guns.

New revelation about the 28 year old assailant Audrey Elizabeth Hale has emerged hours after police released harrowing video showing officers storming the Covenant School in the midst of Monday’s rampage and conducting a room-to-room search before confronting and fatally shooting Hale.

Police authorities said that they were still trying to pin down a motive as detectives pored over various writings and other evidence left by Hale.

Hale was armed with two assault-style weapons and a handgun, the latest in a long string of U.S. mass shootings that have turned schools into killing zones and added fuel to a national debate over gun rights and regulations.

According to Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake told reporters on Tuesday that the three weapons used on Monday were among seven firearms that Hale had legally purchased in recent years from five Nashville-area stores.

Chief said Hale’s own parents did not know that Hale possessed multiple firearms, mistakenly believing that Hale had owned just one gun, then sold it.
Under Tennessee law, mental illness is not grounds for police to confiscate weapons, unless a person is deemed mentally incompetent by a court, “judicially committed” to a mental institution,” or placed under a conservatorship “by reason of mental defect.”

Tennessee prohibits selling guns to persons found by a court or other legal authority to pose a danger to themselves or others, or lack the capacity to conduct their own affairs due to mental illness. But merely being under a doctor’s care would not, in itself, meet that threshold.

Drake said it appeared Hale had some sort of weapons training. Hale fired on officers from the school’s second floor as they arrived in patrol cars while standing back from large windows to avoid becoming an easy target

Drake added that the mother and father felt Hale should not have owned any weapons due to mental health concerns.
The mother, on seeing Hale leave the house with a red bag Monday morning, had questioned what was in the bag.

Meanwhile under Tennessee law, mental illness is not grounds for police to confiscate weapons, unless a person is deemed mentally incompetent by a court, “judicially committed” to a mental institution,” or placed under a conservatorship “by reason of mental defect.”

Tennessee however , prohibits selling guns to persons found by a court or other legal authority to pose a danger to themselves or others, or lack the capacity to conduct their own affairs due to mental illness. But merely being under a doctor’s care would not, in itself, meet that threshold.

Police Chief said it appeared Hale had some sort of weapons training. Because Hale fired on officers from the school’s second floor as they arrived in patrol cars while standing back from large windows to avoid becoming an easy target