2025 Region 10 - Safety 1st Conference

On the morning of March 27, 2023, a woman arrived at The Covenant School in Nashville Tennessee, on the campus of Covenant Presbyterian Church, to carry out a calculated plan to commit mass murder. She was heavily armed with three guns, two of them assault-type weapons, and shot her way through glass doors into the building. She immediately shot and killed a custodian before climbing to an upper level of the school where she shot and killed three nine-year-old students, the school principal, and a substitute teacher.

After a 911 call was placed, Officer Rex Engelbert and Detective Sergeant Jeffrey Mathes, along with Detectives Michael Collazo, Zachary Plese and Ryan Cagle, rushed to the scene. Officer Engelbert retrieved his patrol rifle, was handed a key to the building by a school staffer and yelled for other arriving officers to join him in entering the building. These five officers formed a cohesive team and immediately began clearing school classrooms in search of the shooter.

As the officers methodically cleared the first floor of the building, they heard shots coming from the second floor and immediately climbed a flight of stairs and rushed to the sounds of gunfire. They encountered the shooter near the windows, opening fire on officers below. During the encounter, Officer Engelbert and Detective Collazo took down the shooter, and the encounter ended 13 minutes after the first 911 call had been received.