Last Tango in Moscow - Selected Articles Review - 4:08 AM 3/28/2023
Serhiy Kolyada on its takes two to tango, but one of them leads.
Just before 2am, officers responded to reports of an apartment building break-in—finding a known criminal trying to kick in the door! He was quickly arrested & found to be in possession of stolen goods.
This reporting project by >12 @AP journalists, including reporters on its investigative team — and several staff from @frontlinepbs, documents potential war crimes committed in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
gijn.org/2023/03/28/bes…
A heavily armed 28-year-old killed six people at a Nashville elementary school in a devastating mass shooting attack on Monday morning.
Students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all aged nine, Head of School Katherine Koonce, 60, Cynthia Peak, 61, and Mike Hill, 61, were all killed before police shot dead the suspect - who is believed to be a former student - inside the school.
Here’s what we know about Audrey Elizabeth Hale, whom police have identified as the shooter.
Who was the shooter in the Nashville attack?
Nashville police said on Monday the shooter at Covenant Presbyterian School was 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale.
Police have identified the suspected shooter by their name at birth; Hale reportedly was a transgender man who used he/him pronouns, though law enforcement officials initially described the suspect as a woman in the aftermath of the shooting. Police did not provide another name.
Hale was able to forcibly enter the school door on the first floor of Covenant, where shots were fired, then made make way to an upper level, police said.
They released images of the weapons used in the attack, a photo of Hale’s abandoned car and a smashed glass door which they believe the suspect fired through to make entry.
Audrey Elizabeth Hale is photographed on a linkedin page which was later removed. Police have identified Hale - a transgender male - as the shooter
A team of five officers responding to the shooting encountered Hale inside the school, with two officers fatally shooting the 28-year-old.
A neighbour described Hale coming from a “great family.”
“This is a great family and it’s a tragedy,” they told NBC News.
What was the motive in the Nashville shooting?
Nashville police chief John Drake said on Monday officers have looked into a vehicle and an address linked with the 28-year-old and have spoken with Hale’s father.
In the course of their investigation, officers also discovered manifesto-like writings, and apparent research into the facilities and entry points at Covenant.
A grab from surveillance video released by police shows the shooter during the attack on the Covenant School in Nashville
Investigators have not revealed the contents of those writings.
Sean Brashears, who grew up next door to Hale, told the Daily Beast Hale was a “normal, nice person. Maybe a little quiet,” he said.
“If I had to imagine, Audrey’s parents are probably just as shocked as everybody in the neighborhood is…It just doesn’t seem real,” he said. “There’s nothing that would have led me to believe that she was capable of such a thing or that she or anybody in that family would have access to, much less ever used, a gun. They just don’t seem like the family that, like, is around guns. They’re not talking about going to a gun range or they’re not going hunting.”
Police said the Covenant School - a private Christian elementary - was the only school targeted by Hale but the suspect had also planned to attack another unidentified location.
Students from The Covenant School get off a bus to meet their parents at the reunification site at the Woodmont Baptist Church
What kind of weapons did Hale use in the Nashville shooting?
“We know that she was armed with at least two assault-type rifles and a handgun,” a police spokesperson said during a press briefing on Monday.
Officials said on Monday that two of the three weapons used in the shooting were bought legally.
What has Hale’s family said about the shooting?
Norma Fort Hale, Audrey’s mother, previously posted on social media after school shootings and called for more gun control.
Ms Hale, whose social media profile lists her as an employee of a Nashville-based chapel, shared links on Facebook to a Sandy Hook Promise petition to “keep guns out of schools,” calling the pledge “so important,” according to posts viewed by Heavy.
The posts appear to have since been taken down.
A child weeps while on the bus leaving The Covenant School following a mass shooting at the school
The Independent was not able to reach Ms Hale for comment. A number linked to her name via public records appears to have been disconnected.
Ms Hale appears to have confirmed that Audrey was involved in the shooting.
“It’s very difficult now, we ask for privacy,” she told ABC News. “I really can’t talk right now, I think I lost my daughter today.”
What comes next?
The Metro Nashville Police Department is leading the investigation into the shooting, with assistance from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Three children and three adults have been killed in a shooting at a primary school in the US city of Nashville, Tennessee, local officials said, in the latest instance of deadly gun violence in the United States.
The shooting happened on Monday morning at The Covenant School, a private Presbyterian school for about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade.
All three children had gunshot wounds, officials said, and they were pronounced dead upon arrival at the Monroe Carell Jr Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.
Police say they shot and killed the female attacker. The motive for the shooting is not yet known. This is the 13th mass shooting this year where people have died or been injured at a US school.
President Joe Biden says US gun violence is 'ripping at the very soul of the nation' after the latest shooting.
Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett joins us live from the White House in the US capital for the latest updates.
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#Nashville #Tennessee #USMassShootings #SchoolShooting #CovenantSchoolShooting
German prosecutors said on Monday they searched the home of two pro-Kremlin activists, looking for evidence to corroborate a Reuters report that the couple donated cash to buy radios for Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
Reuters reported in January that Max Schlund and his romantic partner Elena Kolbasnikova donated funds collected from supporters in Germany to a Russian army division fighting in Ukraine, and the money was used to purchase walkie-talkie radios, headphones and telephones.
European Union sanctions ban supplying, or financing the purchase of certain goods for the Russian military. The banned list includes radio gear. Under German law, the criminal penalty for anyone found to have violated sanctions is up to five years in prison.
Ulf Willuhn, a representative of the Cologne public prosecutors, said officers executed a search warrant on Monday morning at the couple's address, and took computers and folders containing written documents.
Asked by a Reuters reporter to comment on the move by prosecutors, Kolbasnikova said: "There's nothing for you to celebrate. Our time has not yet come, and yours is running out. Because neither I, nor my husband, have violated German law in any way, and justice will be restored."
Willuhn said prosecutors would use the evidence they took to evaluate if Schlund and Kolbasnikova had violated paragraph 18 of the German foreign trade and payments act, which sets out punishments for breaches of international sanctions.
He said the search was triggered in part by the Reuters reporting on the donation to buy gear for the Russian army division in Ukraine.
Alongside that, he said prosecutors had also been looking for evidence of whether the couple violated section 140 of the German criminal code, which covers speaking approvingly of criminal acts.
That line of inquiry relates to allegations, reported in the German media, that the couple displayed the "Z" symbol, used by supporters of the Russian invasion, and re-posted a recruitment ad for pro-Kremlin military contractors.
In an audio message sent to supporters on social media on Monday, Kolbasnikova said she was not surprised the search had happened because the German authorities were "committing lawlessness" to try to silence political opponents.
"We will keep fighting ... God is on our side, and Moscow is at our backs. Three cheers for victory!" she said.
In a separate message to supporters, she said prosecutors were trying to build a case against her and her partner over providing help for the Russian army.
Kolbasnikova called on her supporters to attend a previously scheduled rally in Cologne on March 29 to protest in support of free speech and against what she described as "Russophobia".
A spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry, Maria Zakharova, said this month that Kolbasnikova was the victim of persecution by the German authorities.
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A 28-year-old woman fatally shot three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville before she was shot and killed by police, authorities said.
The shooter, who has not been identified, entered the Covenant School via a side door and was armed with at least two assault-style rifles and a handgun, said Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron. She fired multiple shots on the first and second floors of the school before police fatally shot her on the second floor, Aaron said.
The first call on the shooting came in at 10:13 a.m. and the shooter was dead at 10:27 a.m., he said.
One police officer who responded to the scene was wounded from cut glass, he added. There were no other people wounded.
Police initially said the shooter appeared to be in her teens but later identified her as a 28-year-old Nashville woman.
The Nashville Fire Department tried to provide lifesaving efforts to those with “viable signs of life” and transported the three children along with two adults from the scene, Fire spokesperson Kendra Loney said. They did not survive.
The incident is the 19th shooting at a school or university so far this year in which at least one person was wounded, according to a CNN tally. Last week, two faculty members were shot and wounded by a student at a high school in Denver, and the student was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
With six victims, Monday’s attack is the deadliest school shooting since the heinous attack in Uvalde, Texas, last May that left 21 people dead.
The Covenant School is a private Christian school founded in 2001 as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church and teaches preschool through 6th grade, according to its website. On a typical day it has 209 students and 40 to 50 staff members, Aaron said.
“The beauty of a PreSchool-6th school is in its simplicity and innocence,” the school says on its site. “Students are free to be children – they can feel fully and safely known by our faculty and become leaders under their guidance.”
The mass shooting garnered a massive police and fire response, and concerned families gathered outside the school to wait for word of their loved ones.
Avery Myrick, whose mother is a teacher at the school, told CNN affiliate WSMV her mom texted that she was hiding in a closet and could hear shooting all over the school. She later spoke to her mother on the phone and learned she was safe.
“Just getting that initial phone call that she was OK, it obviously brings a ton of relief, but you’re still hurting for the people out there who may not get that call,” she said.
Nashville Mayor John Cooper offered his condolences in a statement.
“In a tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, long list of communities to experience a school shooting. My heart goes out to the families of the victims. Our entire city stands with you. As facts continue to emerge, I thank our first responders and medical professionals,” he said.
Hours after the shooting, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on lawmakers to pass gun safety legislation.
“How many more children have to be murdered before Republicans in Congress will step up and act to pass the assault weapons ban, to close loopholes in our background check system, or to require the safe storage of guns? We need to do something,” she said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
CNN’s Christina Zdanowicz, Michelle Watson and DJ Judd contributed to this report.
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