The first impression one gets from these body-cam videos: police wanted to make sure this was no Uvalde. Nashville’s police department released two different views of the response to the mass shooting at Covenant School. Gunshots can be heard starting at the three-minute mark, showing how quickly police responded and entered to end the threat posed by the shooter.

The police officers who responded used both tactics and courage to immediately confront the threat, and saved lives as a result. Via Mia Cathell at Townhall:

In the six-minute video posted to YouTube, two points-of-view are compiled, showing the perspectives of Officer Rex Engelbert, a four-year MNPD veteran, and Officer Michael Collazo, a nine-year MNPD veteran, the officers credited with fatally shooting Hale…

In the second-floor common area, a team of responding officers encountered Hale firing through a window at arriving police cars.

The second impression: the school tried to respond well, too. One of the staff came out to brief the police and gave them accurate and useful information. Someone had already initiated lockdown measures; the sirens are wailing as the police arrive.

However, by that time the only thing that mattered was the police response. In Uvalde, as in Parkland initially, police hesitated to intervene. The response in Nashville demonstrated no such hesitation, as the video clearly shows. The tactical lead in this assault kept ordering the team to “push,” deploying in rotational tactical order to advance on the threat even in the face of potential gunfire. When they came across the shooter, they did not hesitate to fire on her while she was firing on others.

The tactics of the Metropolitan Nashville Police and the assertiveness of its officers paid off in ending the threat to more lives at Covenant School. Although this is what people expect of law enforcement, it does not make these officers any less heroic in their performance yesterday.

We will have more on this story as it develops. David wrote about his first impressions this morning, and John did a fine job yesterday in covering the shooting shortly after it happened. Beege will have a very good look at the ways in which this response exemplifies what used to be the virtues of honor and sacrifice later this afternoon. However, we won’t know the whole story behind this shooter’s evil acts for quite a while as the police continue their investigation. Of particular interest will be what her “manifesto” had to say about motives, and whether any red flags for mental illness got missed or deliberately ignored, as is so often the case in these mass shootings.

Update: Allow me to include the MNPD tweet as well.

MNPD Officers Rex Engelbert, a 4-year veteran, and Michael Collazo, a 9-year veteran, were part of a team of first responders to the Covenant campus Mon morning. They fired on the active shooter, who was killed. This is their body camera footage. https://t.co/17qsZM6bNp pic.twitter.com/g4b0nMTFRD

— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) March 28, 2023

Update: John took away the same lesson I did:

The word "Go!" is used at least 18 times. Plus "Move!" a bunch of times. They were relentless. https://t.co/gslkf2SyKk

— John Sexton (@verumserum) March 28, 2023

This point can’t be overemphasized. Their assertiveness and courage was not just one decision but a series of decisions, all made in the moment, to confront the danger head-on and personally. They used proper tactics to minimize some of the risk, but they all chose repeatedly to confront the active shooter as soon as possible. That takes training, of course, but it takes something else as well — physical courage and poise.

Update: YouTube has apparently restricted the body-cam footage on the basis of complaints that it is “inappropriate or offensive to some audiences.” That requires a click-through on YouTube’s site to view the video. This is preposterous; the video shows the police response to a crime with any gruesome outcome blurred out. It is being provided for transparency on the police response. If people choose not to watch it, that’s their decision, but it is not “inappropriate” in any sense, nor “offensive” on any rational basis.

Anyway, you can click over and view it there. Here’s an embed of part of the video from Mia’s Twitter:

🚨 BREAKING: Police have released body-camera footage of the Nashville officers fatally shooting transgender shooter Audrey "Aiden" Hale inside the Covenant School yesterday. pic.twitter.com/Pgmw1fJnbY

— Mia Cathell (@MiaCathell) March 28, 2023