Nashville shooting audio released

Pleas for help heard in 911 calls from Tennessee school

A woman wipes away tears as she visits a memorial at the entrance to The Covenant School on Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn. More photos at arkansasonline.com/331nashville/.
(AP/Wade Payne)
A woman wipes away tears as she visits a memorial at the entrance to The Covenant School on Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn. More photos at arkansasonline.com/331nashville/. (AP/Wade Payne)


NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Authorities released 911 recordings on Thursday that capture the terror inside a Nashville elementary school during a mass shooting this week, as callers pleaded for help in hushed voices while sirens, crying and gunfire could be heard in the background.

Police released recordings of three emergency calls made during Monday's attack at The Covenant School, in which three children and three adults were killed.

In one, 76-year-old retired church member Tom Pulliam tells the dispatcher he is with a group of people, including several children, who are walking away from the Christian school toward a main road. Although Pulliam remains calm, the tension and confusion of the situation are clear, with several adults speaking over each other and children's voices in the background.

When the dispatcher requests a description of the shooter, Pulliam asks a second man to get on the line.

"All I saw was a man holding an assault rifle shooting through the door. It was -- he's currently in the second grade hallway, upstairs" the man says, noting that the assailant was dressed in camouflage and wearing a vest.

Asked about how many shots were fired, a woman responds, "I heard about 10 and I left the building."

In another call that started just before 10:13 a.m., a woman tells a dispatcher that she can hear a pause in the gunshots from her hiding spot in an art room closet.

Asked if it is a safe spot, the woman answers, "I think so," as children can be heard in the background.

The teacher then says she can hear more gunshots, begging the dispatcher, "Please hurry."

Authorities say the attack ended when police shot and killed the assailant, a former student they identified as 28-year-old Audrey Hale.

The release of the recordings came as people protested at the Tennessee Capitol on Thursday in favor of tighter gun controls, haranguing the Republican-led Legislature to take action.

Chants of "Save our children!" echoed noisily in the hallways between the state Senate and House chambers, with protesters setting up shop inside and outside the building. Some silently filled the Senate chamber's gallery, including children who held signs reading "I'm nine" -- a reference to the age of the kids who died. Most protesters were removed from the gallery after some began yelling down at the lawmakers, "Children are dead!"

The protests came after a Wednesday night candlelight vigil in Nashville where Republican lawmakers stood alongside first lady Jill Biden, Democratic lawmakers and musicians including Sheryl Crow, who has called for stricter gun controls since the attack. The vigil was somber and at times tearful, as speaker after speaker read the victims' names and offered condolences to their loved ones but refrained from any statement that could be seen as political.

Police said Hale drove up to the school on Monday morning, shot out the glass doors, entered and began firing indiscriminately.

The three students who were killed were Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. The three adults were Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of the school; substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; and Mike Hill, a 61-year-old custodian.

Funeral plans are starting to take shape, with services for Evelyn today, Hallie on Saturday and Hill on Tuesday. Evelyn's obituary urged mourners to wear joyful colors as a tribute to her "light and love of color."

Absent from the vigil was Tennessee's Republican governor, Bill Lee, who has avoided public appearances this week and has not proposed any possible steps his administration might take in response to the shooting. Lee has been an advocate for less restrictive gun laws along with greater school security, and he once intimated that prayer could protect the state from school shootings and other things.


  photo  Addie Brue, 16, and Madeline Lederman, 17, shout “do something” at Tennessee Republican state Rep. Jeremy Faison on Thursday at the state Capitol in Nashville during a protest over gun laws. Meanwhile, police released 911 recordings of Monday’s mass shooting at a Nashville school. More photos at arkansasonline.com/331nashville/. (AP/The Tennessean/Nicole Hester)
 
 



 Gallery: Gun protests at Tennessee Capitol



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