‘Basically a Suicide Note’: Transgender School Shooter Messaged Friend Minutes Before Rampage

The transgender shooter, Audrey Hale, who identified as “Aiden,” sent suicidal messages to a former basketball teammate just before she began the shooting rampage at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, killing six people. Hale messaged Averianna Patton saying she wanted to die and that “something bad is about to happen.” Patton noticed the messages at 9:57 a.m., and authorities received the first 911 call that shots had been fired at the school at 10:13 a.m. Three nine-year-old students and three adults were killed at the private Christian school.

Hale messaged Patton on Instagram and implied that her previous post to her friend was like a “suicide note.” Hale’s message to her friend said, “You’ll probably hear about me on the news after I die. See you again in another life.” Officials have released body cam footage of the police response to the Nashville shooting where they engaged and shot Hale. Patton tried to talk Hale down and encouraged her to keep living, but Hale insisted that she needed to die.

President Joe Biden took the Nashville shooting as an opportunity to call for the banning of assault weapons and requested Congress to do more to address the gun control measures.

The Covenant School is catered to the education of students from preschool to sixth grade and is a private Christian school.