On March 27, 2023, a mass shooting occurred at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian Church in America parochial elementary school in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Aiden Hale (born Audrey Elizabeth Hale), a 28-year-old transgender man and former student of the school, killed three nine‑year‑old children and three adults before officer Rex Engelbert and detective Michael Collazo, members of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD), shot and killed him. Hale was a former student of the school who had been planning the attack for several years.
In April 2025, the MNPD closed its investigation into the shooting, concluding that Hale had been motivated by numerous factors, including a desire for notoriety and media attention. Hale had chosen The Covenant School as he wanted to die somewhere that made him happy, and he considered the years he attended the school to be the happiest of his life.
Background
The Covenant School is a private Christian school in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville. It educates students from pre-kindergarten to the sixth grade. It was founded in 2001 as a ministry of Nashville's Covenant Presbyterian Church, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America; its enrollment is about 200 students.
Shooting
At around 8:00 a.m. CDT Hale left home with a large duffle bag containing weapons and tactical gear, drove to a shooting range, put on a tactical vest, and prepared the weapons. Hale left the range at 9:33 and drove to The Covenant School, where he arrived at 9:53. At 9:57, Hale sent an Instagram message to an old friend saying that an earlier post was "basically a suicide note" and expressed a desire to die that day. The friend called the Suicide Prevention Help Line and contacted the Davidson County Sheriff's Office at 10:13, but was on hold with the sheriff's office for roughly seven minutes.
At 10:09, Hale approached one of the entrances on the building's west side armed with an AR-15-style pistol, a KelTec SUB-2000 carbine, and a Smith & Wesson M&P Shield pistol. At 10:11, Hale fired through a set of glass side doors, climbed through them, and entered the building. Custodian Michael Hill was cleaning a room adjacent to the Youth Center but moved to investigate. They spotted each other at the same time, at which point Hill attempted to flee but was shot several times in the back. Gun smoke from the AR pistol triggered the fire alarm and locked the doors separating the church from the school.
Hale proceeded to a stairwell leading to the second floor. A class of third-graders were following evacuation protocols and descending the staircase with a substitute teacher, Cynthia Peak, who had come from the office. As the students entered the stairwell, Hale fired several shots with the AR pistol and struck the substitute teacher and three students. The remaining students and teachers ran back into their classrooms and barricaded themselves. Hale emptied the remainder of the AR pistol's magazine into a classroom door on the second floor, then loaded another magazine and fired through the door of an adjacent classroom; one student was injured by flying debris. Attempting to find the source of the fire alarm, executive principal Dr. Katherine Koonce entered the hallway. When she asked what Hale was doing in the school, Hale responded by firing at her with the AR pistol before switching to the Shield pistol and firing again. Upon hearing the gunfire in the hallway, the staff in the office realized there was a shooter. They barricaded themselves inside and contacted other teachers to alert them. Some classes had already assembled outside. Upon realizing the situation was not a fire and instead an active shooter, the teachers stopped evacuation measures and ordered everyone inside. Some instead ran through the woods to the fire station near the south entrance of the campus or to the north. At 10:13, police received a 911 call about an active shooter.
Hale spent the next several minutes moving through the hallways of the school brandishing a carbine, entering several rooms near Koonce's body but not encountering anyone. At 10:18 Hale walked towards the church offices and searched them, and found nobody despite several staff members hiding there. At 10:19 Hale descended a nearby stairwell, entered the first floor by the northwest entrance, and walked through the lounge adjacent to the cafeteria and the student lobby area. Upon reaching the end of the hall leading to main lobby for the sanctuary Hale fired several shots into wall-mounted television sets, then fired through the doors leading to the Pre-K and kindergarten. Hale then ascended back to the second floor and entered the sanctuary, fired through a stained glass window depicting Adam and Eve, and returned to the upper level of the lobby. Police officers had arrived at 10:19 and parked directly in front of the church, on the east side of the building. When officers arrived at the scene, a teacher told them that the students were in lockdown and that two were missing. The first officer entered through one of the west entrances at 10:20 but could not hear any gunfire. He then joined other officers at the south entrance.
Around this same time, Hale spotted police and took up a firing position at a large window overlooking the south side parking lot. He then fired on the officers through the window for over two minutes, deflating the tires of two police vehicles. The gunfire forced officers to take cover behind their vehicles. Around the same time, at 10:25, officers entered the building from the south entrance. They proceeded to several rooms on the first floor to look for the shooter, but ascended to the second floor after hearing gunfire coming from there. Due to the fire alarm, the sound of his gunfire, and his wearing of earplugs, Hale could not hear the officers approaching. One officer fired his rifle and Hale collapsed. Officers shouted at him to stop moving. They approached to take him into custody but found that he was still in possession of his firearms and that his arms were still moving. A second officer fired his pistol and fatally wounded him. According to an autopsy report, the assailant was shot four times, once in the head, once in the torso, once in the left arm, and once in the right thigh. Police confirmed Hale was dead at 10:27.
A reunification center was set up by the Metro Nashville Police Department at the Woodmont Baptist Church; students were taken there by school bus in the afternoon. An investigative report conducted by the MNPD concluded that Hale had fired 152 rounds during the attack: 126 from his AR-pistol, 25 from his carbine, and once from his pistol. Hale was also found with 272 live rounds on his person (199 5.56 cartridges and 73 9mm cartridges). In his car, several items were found, such as his wallet, car keys, cellphone, a backpack containing two notebooks, several stuffed animals, and five fully loaded 5.56 magazines. In Hale's residence, a short-barreled 12-gauge shotgun was found in his closet, and a suicide note addressed to his parents was found on his desk.
Victims
Six people—three students and three staff—were killed at random. Five were pronounced dead at a hospital and one at the scene. The deceased students were Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and Hallie Scruggs, all aged 9. The deceased faculty members were substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; custodian Mike Hill, 61; and the school's headmaster Katherine Koonce, 60. In addition, a third-grade student was shot and injured, and a police officer was hurt after cutting his hand on shattered glass.
Perpetrator
Aiden Hale (March 25, 1995 – March 27, 2023), was a 28-year-old former student of The Covenant School and a Nashville resident with no criminal record. Hale had attended the Covenant School from 2001 to 2006 (kindergarten through fourth grade). Hale considered those years the happiest of his life, claiming he felt "safe and accepted" there.
Hale then attended Isaiah T. Creswell Middle School of the Arts (also known as Creswell Middle School). Here, he played on the girls' basketball team during the 2008-2009 school year. While Hale was constantly bullied at the school, the girls on the basketball team were very kind to him, which reportedly led to Hale having a lifetime obsession with them. One of the girls told The Tennessean that Hale had proceeded to stalk her on social media years prior to the shooting, saying: "It felt obsessive. It felt like stalkerish behavior." Another girl who was on the team passed away in a car crash in August 2022, which greatly upset Hale, who attended her funeral. In 2010, Hale entered the Nashville School of the Arts, where he graduated in 2014. According to a friend, Hale "had a childlike obsession with staying a child". Hale was an illustrator and graphic designer who graduated from the Nossi College of Art & Design in 2022. A neighbor said Hale lived with his parents.
Hale became fascinated with school shootings in 2017, after watching numerous documentaries about the Columbine massacre. In 2018, Hale began planning an attack on Creswell Middle School, however in January 2021, he instead chose The Covenant School out of fear of being labelled a racist due to the middle school's mostly black population. The attack was initially set to occur on April 13, 2021, to be near the anniversary of the Columbine massacre. He ultimately decided he wouldn’t be able to and chose a different date. On September 14, 2021, Hale went to The Covenant School and was able to get a faculty-guided tour soon after. Hale photographed and filmed locations within the school. MNPD Police Chief John Drake said Hale was under care for an emotional disorder and had legally purchased seven firearms, including three recovered from the shooting scene, between October 2020 and June 2022.
Gender
Police first referred to Hale as a woman and used his birth name. On the day of the shooting, MNPD Chief John Drake said that authorities "feel that [Hale] identifies as trans, but we're still in the initial investigation into all of that". Media sources subsequently reported Hale was a trans man. His former art teacher and a former classmate recalled him coming out as transgender on Facebook in 2022. Reactions to Hale’s gender came under scrutiny and many criticized media outlets for misgendering him.
Investigation
The MNPD took the lead of the investigation of the shooting, assisted by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Two shotguns, one of which was sawed-off, and other evidence were found in a search of the Hales' house. Evidence included a detailed map of the school with potential entry points and a manifesto. Hale was believed to have undertaken reconnaissance, and had originally considered targeting another location but had decided not to carry out the attack due to the level of security on the premises. On April 3, police said Hale planned the shooting for months and fired 152 rounds at the school, 126 of them 5.56 rifle rounds and 26 of them 9mm rounds.
Hale's surviving writings, including diaries and a planning document, initially called a "manifesto", were described by police as "rambling" and empty of any specific political or social issues. Three pages of Hale's diary, described by CNN as containing "hate-filled language" directed at the school and its children, were leaked by conservative commentator Steven Crowder on November 6, 2023. In the pages released by Crowder, Hale allegedly wrote: "Wanna kill all you little crackers ... Bunch of little faggots w/ your white privlages [sic] fuck you faggots."
In April 2025, the MNPD closed their investigation, concluding in a 48-page report that Hale was motivated by a desire for notoriety. Hale left behind 16 notebooks containing over 1,000 pages of writings expressing a desire to serve as an inspiration for books, documentaries, a museum containing the firearms used in the shooting, as well as further school shootings by others. Hale watched a documentary about school shooters in 2017, and by 2018 had become obsessed with the issue, investigators claimed. Initially inspired by the Columbine massacre, Hale began to rank school shootings, believing that achieving a high kill count and media notoriety would make one a "god".