Former Covenant School pastor Jim Bachmann says the shooter appeared to be searching for Chad Scruggs while going through the school, and then shot and killed his 9-year-old daughter, Hallie.
UPDATE (March 30, 4:15 p.m. ET): Before this report was broadcast, Inside Edition requested a comment from The Covenant School in connection with a statement by its former pastor, Jim Bachmann, that he had heard the shooter, Audrey Hale, had been counseled by its current pastor, Chad Scruggs, and that Scruggs may have been targeted by Hale. After the report was broadcast, we received a statement on behalf of The Covenant School which stated, in part, that the information that Hale was being counseled by Scruggs was “inaccurate” and “based on hearsay."
Was the Nashville shooter targeting a school pastor and his family in the attack on the Covenant School?
Inside Edition has learned that Audrey Hale was believed to be having counseling sessions with Chad Scruggs.
"What I'm hearing, he was providing counseling for [Hale] and something didn't sit right with [Hale]," former Covenant School pastor Jim Bachmann tells Ann Mercogliano.
Bachmann says Hale appeared to be searching for Scruggs while going through the school, and then shot and killed his 9-year-old daughter, Hallie.
"If [Hale] found Chad and tried to kill him, I don't know if [Hale would] have left his daughter alone," Bachmann tells Inside Edition.
The former pastor also reveals that he knew Hale as a student 20 years ago, having been a student at the Covenant School.
Describing Hale as "very normal, happy-go-lucky," Bachmann says, and "liked to play kickball with the boys."
The daring police raid that took down the shooter is in sharp contrast with the failure of the police to save lives in Uvalde, Texas, last May.
In the end, 19 children and two teachers were killed at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
Footage from inside the school on Monday shows the Nashville officers urgently entering a classroom while searching for the shooter, unlike the police in Uvalde, who stood outside the classroom door.
Cops in Nashville were also seen taking the stairs two at a time while racing to locate the shooter, unlike those in Uvalde who stood by as victims lay dying inside.
"In Uvalde we see multiple officers on the scene and then not entering the classroom," former NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey tells Inside Edition. "They're in the hallway, they know where the shooter is, he's still firing but they're waiting."
After arriving at the school, officers managed to locate and take down Hale in just two minutes and 15 seconds.
Corey also stresses the "amount of courage it takes to go into that building and confront the unknown" as these officers did in Nashville.
"You've got a shooter who's armed, a shooter who's shooting people, but also maybe the most dangerous of adversaries: someone who's not afraid to die," he says.
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