Metropolitan Nashville Police Department/Handout via Reuters
The armed assailant who attacked a private Christian grade school in Nashville on Monday, killing three children and three staff members, had an emotional outburst in class on his first day of college in 2017, a former instructor told The New York Times. Speaking to the newspaper on Tuesday, Maria Colomy recalled seeing the shooter, identified by police as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, in the front row of her class at the Nossi College of Art & Design in Nashville. Hale was having difficulty creating a password for an online student portal, Colomy said, and was beginning to cry. Colomy said she suggested Hale step out of class. It was the only such breakdown Hale experienced in her classroom, Colomy said. Several years later, Colomy said she saw Hale “openly grieving” the death of a romantic partner on Facebook. Hale asked in one of the posts that people begin addressing him as “Aiden,” and use male pronouns when referring to him, according to the teacher.
