Melissa Joan Hart broke down in tears as she spoke about assisting young kindergartners to safety during a horrific school shooting in Nashville on Monday morning.
A former pupil opened fire at a private Christian school, killing three 9-year-olds and three staff members.
The Nashville-based actress and mother of three said in an emotional Instagram video that her children attend school “just next to” the Covenant School, where the tragedy occurred. This isn’t the first time she and her family have been near a school shooting.
“We moved here from Connecticut, where we were in school a couple of ways down from Sandy Hook, so this is our second experience with a school shooting with our kids being so near,” Hart, 46, explained. “Fortunately, we’re all fine.”
She said she and her husband, Mark Wilkerson, with whom she has three sons, Mason, 17, Braden, 15, and Tucker, 10, were in the thick of it and helped tiny children who “were trying to flee.”
“My husband and I were on our way to school for conferences, and luckily our kids weren’t in today,” Hart added, visibly moved.
“We assisted a class of Kindergartners in crossing a busy highway; they were climbing out of the woods, attempting to escape a shooter situation at their school, so we assisted these small young kids in crossing the road and getting their instructors over there.”
“We helped a lady reunite with her children, and I just… I don’t know what to say. Enough is enough. Just pray, pray for the families,” she ended.
She wrote, “Prayers today, Action tomorrow.” “This was too raw for yesterday’s post, but I wanted you to hear this story.”
Authorities in Nashville have verified that the perpetrator, a former pupil named Audrey Hale, 28, gained entry to the Covenant School by shooting through a glass door before killing three adults and three children. Police engaged the shooter on the second level of the building, killing the assailant by 10:27 a.m.
The attacker’s gender is unknown. Authorities initially identified the shooter as a female but later stated that the assailant was transgender. A police spokesperson told CNN that Hale used masculine pronouns on his social media site.
According to Nashville police spokesperson Don Aaron, the shooter had two “assault-type rifles” and one pistol.
Police released body-camera footage of Englebert and Collazo’s encounter with the shooter on Tuesday morning.
Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, William Kinney, all 9, and Katherine Koonce, 60, Michael Hill, and Cynthia Peak, both 61, were the victims before the gunman was identified.
“Our community is heartbroken,” declared the Covenant School. “We are grieving huge loss and in shock after the horror that devastated our school and church; we are focused on loving our children, families, educators, and staff and beginning the healing process.”
As of Monday morning, there have been 128 mass shootings in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an occurrence in which four or more people are shot, regardless of the number of fatalities.
How to help
You can donate to the families of the victims through The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. ViVE and VictimsFirst have also created GoFundMe pages for donations. Both fundraisers are verified.
