'180-degree difference': How the Nashville school shooting police response compares to Uvalde

About 1,000 miles away from the worst school shooting in Texas history and one of the nation’s most botched police responses ever, Metro Nashville police respond to a school shooting with urgency and teamwork painfully absent in Uvalde.

Amid a wailing siren, officers move quickly throughout the Covenant School, a private Christian academy, some with raised assault rifles, but others with pistols, shouting “door! door!” as they turn the knob on doors to classrooms and bathrooms searching for the shooter.

They race up a concrete stairwell – “Go! Go! Go!” they shout – before confronting the shooter in a second-floor lobby with a large scenic window. They fire rounds of gunfire. Moments later, the shooter lies dead.

Fourteen minutes passed Monday from the first 911 call to the time police stopped the attacker, who killed three children and three school employees.

“It was absolutely professional, very, very brave,” said Robert J. Louden, a professor emeritus of criminal justice and homeland security at Georgian Court University in New Jersey. “It is the epitome of what police should be doing.”

'Above and beyond':Nashville police moved fast, saved lives in Covenant shooting, experts say

Nashville and Uvalde school shootings timelines are vastly different

The Nashville shooting response — police released body camera footage Tuesday — stands in deep and haunting contrast to what happened 10 months ago at Uvalde's Robb Elementary School, where an army of heavily armed police officers paced in the hallway for more than an hour as the gunman remained in a classroom.

“This was a 180-degree difference,” Louden said. “They sized up the situation, they entered, and they did not hesitate.”

The latest school shooting — and video showing an effective and swift police response — served to only traumatize Uvalde families, according to some of their social media posts, and deepen the hurt of May 24.

“It took 14 minutes, FOURTEEN MINUTES to respond and kill that (shooter) in Nashville,” Kimberly Garcia, who lost her daughter, Amerie Jo, in the Uvalde shooting, posted on Twitter. “How did that take 14 minutes but took SEVENTY-SEVEN MINUTES in Uvalde?”

14-minute timeline: From the Nashville school shooter's break-in to how police responded

74 minutes, 8 seconds: Inside the police response to the Uvalde shooting

Amerie’s stepfather, Angel Garza, wrote on Twitter: “Seeing that body camera footage brings back so many memories and thoughts. The officers that breached the room had zero riot shields. Just heart…what’s your response to that Uvalde Police Department?”

Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat from San Antonio whose district includes Uvalde and who has sharply criticized state law enforcement for its Uvalde response, posted on Twitter: "Nashville police neutralized the killer in 14 minutes. Then in less than 24 hours later they released body cam footage. Meanwhile, (the Texas Department of Public Safety) let the Uvalde killer wreak havoc for 77 minutes and made legislators sign NDAs to view footage. Ten months later, they have YET to be transparent."

The degree to which the failed response in Uvalde played any role in the effective Nashville deployment is not clear. But Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake emphasized the officers’ urgency: “We will not wait. I was hoping that this day would never come here in this city, but we will never wait to make entry and to stop a threat.”

Quick release of Nashville shooting video likely tied to Uvalde, professor says

National policing experts told the American-Statesman and the USA Today Network on Tuesday that the flawed response at Robb Elementary served as a clear reminder to the law enforcement profession about the role of police when confronting an active shooter.

“It would have been on my mind, certainly,” said Ronald Runkel, a retired supervisor and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agent who has analyzed school shootings.

James Bernard Pratt Jr., a Fisk University associate professor of criminal justice and the program coordinator of homeland security and criminal justice, said the police response and the quick release of information, including body camera footage, has likely been influenced by the Uvalde shooting.

More:How a false tale of police heroism in Uvalde spread and unraveled

“A lot of the time, we’ve seen historically police departments want to wait and provide as little information as possible to make sure the public is OK, but also give time to vet things,” he said. “In this moment, in this instance, I think Uvalde did in fact inform how people are presenting the duty and the role of police in these circumstances.”

Police have trained since the 1999 Columbine High School shooting to immediately kill an active shooter, rather than wait for an armored SWAT team — or even backup — to arrive.

Police response during Nashville shooting saved lives

Texas authorities, including Gov. Greg Abbott, initially hailed the Uvalde police response as heroic, even as authorities refused to release video of the response. Two months later, the tale of bravery collapsed when the Statesman published the hallway video showing the policing breakdown.

Investigators and the public still do not fully understand what happened in Uvalde. Texas Department of Public Safety officials have said that Pete Arredondo, then the school district's police chief, treated the shooter as a barricaded subject rather than an active shooter.

More experienced officers, including those from the DPS, also did not take control of the scene.

It remains unclear if a faster police response in Uvalde could have saved lives. However, experts said they fear the Nashville shooter had ample firepower — including three guns — to cause more bloodshed.

Minutes, not hours, saved lives, said Todd McGhee, a 24-year veteran with the Massachusetts State Police — a step in the right direction in the evolution of training in large cities.

"I would say that under extreme circumstances, they went above and beyond," said McGhee, who gives training on defense tactics and gun safety. "Those first-responding officers were the model response in how active shooter response should be.

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"It could have been as bad as Uvalde,” he said.

Jesse Rizo, whose niece, Jackie Cazares, died in the Uvalde shooting, could barely find words after watching the Nashville video.

“I’m almost speechless,” he told the Statesman on Tuesday. "The things that stood out right away … there’s nothing but leadership. The guy has a pistol in his hand. A pistol, no shield, there’s no helmets. They don’t run and hide; they don’t retreat.

“It’s day and night,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Nashville school shooting police response vastly different than Uvalde