Does police body camera footage from the March 27, 2023, mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, show that the active shooter had changed clothes and shoes sometime during the incident? No, that's not true: Two still images posted to social media originated in official footage that was recorded using different cameras in different locations of the school under different lighting conditions, which resulted in clothing looking slightly different. Lead Stories analyzed all available video footage released by the Metropolitan Nashville Police as of April 4, 2023. Both surveillance footage and body camera video showed the 28-year-old shooter wearing camouflage pants and black sneakers.
A version of the claim originated in a video shared on Instagram on March 29, 2023, which included authentic video footage of the shooter. Copy that accompanied the video read:
33 teachers worked at the school.
3 children and 3 adults killed.
Address is 33 Burton Hills Blvd.
An anti gun spokeswoman who was at another shooting, happened to be there on vacation visiting a friend who's child attends the high school... (likely story).
The ages of the children are all 9 (inverted 666) and the ages of the adults are 60, 61, 61.
What appears to be different pants and shoes on in the two videos released almost immediately to the public...
I'm gonna let you tell me what your thoughts are? False flag? Training exercise? Set up to push gun control? Or a tragic occurrence with a ton of coincidental happenings?
Before commenting... please understand that false flags do not mean that it was fake. It means it was planned. Unfortunately real people are hurt in the crossfire of false flags (think 9/11).
Below is how the post appeared at the time of this writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken Tue March 30 20:00:47 UTC 2023)
A text overlay on the video shared to Instagram connected the video to the TikTok account @sumtingwong.007. That video appeared to have been deleted from the TikTok account at the time of writing.
The video shared on Instagram included two still images taken from surveillance and bodycam footage that was released by law enforcement in the days following the shooting.
The first image was taken from surveillance footage that recorded Audrey Hale, a former student of the school, driving through the parking lot before firing rounds through glass doors. Shown at the 1:03 mark here, Hale is clearly seen wearing camouflage pants, black and white sneakers, and an orange baseball hat in a well-lit area of the school. Below is a side-by-side comparison of the video shared on Instagram (left) and footage released by law enforcement officials (right):
Source: Screenshots taken from Instagram and surveillance footage Tue April 4 17:54:00 UTC 2023)
The second still image shown in the video posted to Instagram originated in a six-minute video compilation that was released on March 28, 2023, and showed video recorded using body-worn cameras from two of the responding officers, Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo. It was recorded in a different part of the school than the surveillance footage and was not as well-lit. Though granulated, the video also clearly shows the shooter wearing camouflage pants and black shoes with a white stripe. Due to its graphic nature, we have chosen not to post the screengrab.
Lead Stories has also reported that a viral photo does not show Hale holding a protest sign that says, "TRANS RIGHTS ...OR ELSE?" that a photograph of a young man is not the shooter before a purported gender transition and that "Samantha Hyde" was not the shooter.
