How Nashville Prepared for the Day It Never Wanted to Face

NASHVILLE — The first 911 calls started coming in just before 10:13 a.m. Teachers and staff members, hiding in rooms, bathrooms and closets across the Covenant School and its church, whispered prayers and pleas for help on the line, children’s voices and gunshots audible in the background.

Dispatchers assured the callers that the police were already on their way, calmly pressing for details about their location and the shooter. When officers did arrive, minutes later, they formed small teams and swept through elementary school classrooms filled with empty desks in search of the shooter, moving toward the sound of gunfire from the second floor.

By 10:27 a.m., officers armed with handguns and rifles had found the shooter by a window in an open lobby, opened fire and killed the attacker.

The swift response to the shooting at the Nashville school on Monday, in which three adults and three 9-year-old children were killed, highlighted how law enforcement tactics and training have evolved to confront the reality of repeated mass shootings at American schools. It also illustrated a renewed focus on confronting the assailant as soon as possible, a longstanding priority underscored by the botched response to the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last May. uvalde strong shirts