Florida Sen. Rick Scott suggests ‘automatic death penalty’ for school shooters

ORLANDO, Fla. – Sen. Rick Scott tweeted Monday that an “automatic death penalty” should be considered for school shooters after three children and three adults were killed at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.

Officials said 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale, broke into The Covenant School and fatally shot Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all 9 years old, and Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Mike Hill, 61.

The website of The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school founded in 2001, lists a Katherine Koonce as the head of the school. Her LinkedIn profile says she has led the school since July 2016. Peak was a substitute teacher and Hill was a custodian, according to investigators.

“We need to consider an automatic death penalty for school shooters,” Scott tweeted. “Life in prison is not enough for the deranged monsters who go into our schools to kill innocent kids & educators. Pray for all facing the unimaginable in Nashville. This is horrible & must stop.”

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Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake did not say exactly what drove the shooter to open fire Monday morning at The Covenant School before being killed by police. But he provided chilling examples of the shooter’s elaborate planning for the targeted attack, the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country that has grown increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.

“We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident,” he told reporters. “We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place.”

Police identified the shooter as Hale but later said Hale was transgender. After the news conference, police spokesperson Don Aaron declined to elaborate on how Hale currently identified.

Late Monday night, police released approximately two minutes of edited surveillance video showing the shooter’s car driving up to the school from multiple angles, including one in which children can be seen playing on swings in the background. Next an interior view shows glass doors to the school being shot out and the shooter ducking through one of the shattered doors.

More video from inside shows the shooter walking through a school corridor holding a gun with a long barrel and walking into a room labeled “church office,” then coming back out. In the final part of the footage, the shooter can be seen walking down another long corridor with the gun drawn. The shooter is not seen interacting with anyone else on the video, which has no sound.

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