EXCLUSIVE DETAILS: While a team of Nashville police officers swarmed a Christian school Monday morning to stop an active shooter, the department praised two of the responding officers, credited with taking down the suspect, by name.
Hero Metro Nashville Police Officers Michael Collazo, 31, and Rex Engelbert, 27, have served in the department for nine and four years, respectively. The department declined to make either of them available for an interview on Tuesday.
Collazo, a Marine Corps veteran and former firefighter, also responded to the Christmas Day bombing in 2020, his sister said Tuesday. He is also the father of a young girl himself.
Engelbert, one of the first officers on scene, is shown on bodycam video calmly retrieving his rifle from the back of a police SUV as a teacher outside explains the situation.
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He really does love his job. When I sit and think about all the training and all the different classes that he does, and all the family events that he’s had to miss because of training or leaving to go through this training or this class… it all really does pay off.
“[He’s] obviously very brave, braver than I ever imagined,” Deanna Collazo DeHart, his older sister, told Fox News Digital. “He really does love his job. When I sit and think about all the training and all the different classes that he does, and all the family events that he’s had to miss because of training or leaving to go through this training or this class… it all really does pay off.”
Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake identified the two officers who fatally shot suspected school shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale on March 27, 2023, as Michael Collazo, inset left, and Rex Engelbert. (Metro Nashville Police Department)
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Her brother’s actions left the family feeling a deep pride, even as they were concerned about his well-being in the aftermath of the attack, she said.
“To see the bravery of all of them just storming and clearing the rooms is absolutely phenomenal,” DeHart added. “And you commend the whole department.”
WATCH: Nashville police bodycam shows officers arrive at the Covenant School
Engelbert received a commendation for “precision policing” just last week for his role in a pair of busts that recovered nearly two dozen stolen credit cards, a stolen handgun, meth and fentanyl.
“These seizures took two dangerous felons who had multiple outstanding warrants off the streets of downtown Nashville,” the city’s Central Precinct said in a statement Thursday. “We are so thankful for their dedication to keeping our city safe.”
A still frame from Officer Rex Engelbert’s bodycam footage shows the moments after he and fellow Office Michael Collazo took down an active school shooter named Audrey Hale. (Metropolitan Nashville Police Department)
Speaking separately at a news briefing Tuesday, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Collazo had also served as a SWAT team paramedic.
He was born and raised in Nashville, joined the Marine Corps right out of high school and told his parents hours after the shooting that he drew heavily from his military training during the ordeal, according to DeHart.
Officer Rex Engelbert, third from left, was among a group of Central Precinct officers recognized last week with a “Central Precinct Commander’s Coin for their hard work and dedication to precision policing.” (Metro Nashville Police Department)
She also noted her brother had responded to Nashville’s Christmas Day bombing in 2020.
Nashville police as a whole executed the response with near perfection, experts told Fox News Digital Tuesday after the department released several minutes of bodycam video of the encounter.
Officer Michael Collazo’s bodycam footage shows Nashville Police Department officers responding to the Covenant School afrer 28-year-old Audrey Hale opened fire. (Metropolitan Nashville Police Department)
“These guys need to be recognized and honored,” said Dave Katz, the CEO of Global Security Group and a former DEA special agent who led the agency’s tactical ballistic shield program in the 1990s. “Our president should bring these guys both to the White House and put a medal on their chests.”
A police officer walks by an entrance to The Covenant School after a shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday, March 27, 2023. (AP Photo/John Amis)
“A person of selfless service, Marine, firefighter, cop, it doesn’t get any more heroic than that,” National Police Associated spokesperson Betsy Branter Smith, a retired sergeant with 29 years of experience, said of Collazo.
The veteran police trainer said she watched the bodycam footage Tuesday morning along with five other former officers, including two SWAT members and her husband, who is also a police trainer. The execution was near perfect, she said.
“It’s a training video,” she told Fox News Digital. “Look at the minute they heard shots fired. What did they say? ‘Shots fired! Shots fired! Move! Move! Move!’ They went faster. Rifles first. They’re in there, patting each other on the back. They’re doing all the right things to encourage each other, knowing they’re putting themselves in harm’s way, running toward gunshots, to stop that shooter.”
She called it the “antithesis” of the much-maligned police response to the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting last year and praised Nashville police from the top down, calling the officers’ response the result of “true leadership.”
Police cordon off an area after reports of a shooting at The Covenant School, Nashville, Tennessee on Monday, March 27, 2023. (Emily Zanotti/Fox News Digital)
“The National Police Association is so incredibly proud of these police officers, and we’re also proud of the other 750,000 officers who go out every single day and do what these men and women did in the Nashville Police department,” she said. “As a nation we have got to look at situations like this and say this demonization of American law enforcement has got to stop.”
In a six-minute compilation of bodycam video police released Tuesday morning, Engelbert is first seen arriving outside the school.
“The kids are all locked down, but we have two kids that we don’t know where they are,” an unidentified school employee tells him as he grabs a rifle out of the back of his police SUV.
“OK,” he says. “Yes, ma’am.”
“At the end of this hall is Fellowship Hall,” she continues. “They just said they heard gunshots down there and then upstairs are a bunch of kids.”
“Let’s go,” Engelbert calls out. “I need three.”
Within moments, he and other officers are rushing through the school, checking door-to-door as an alarm blares around them.
When the officers hear gunshots from the second floor, they sprint up the stairs and encounter 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a transgender artist and former student who police said had targeted the school, actively shooting through the window at other officers outside.
Without hesitation, they took the killer out.
“We need to go back to that warrior mentality, of ‘those children’s lives are more important than mine,'” Brantner Smith said. “That’s what you want in your police officers, truly selfless service.”
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Three 9-year-old victims have been identified as Hallie Scruggs, whose father is the church’s pastor, Evelyn Dieckhaus and William Kinney.
Police identified the adult victims as 60-year-old Head of School Katherine Koonce, whom sources told Fox News Digital died after confronting Hale, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, and Mike Hill, also 61, who was killed as Hale sprayed bullets into a side door to gain entry into the building.
Fox News’ Paul Best and Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.
