Nashville Council marks anniversary of Covenant School shooting, honors victims

Nearly a year after three students and three adults were killed by a shooter at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023, Nashville's Metro Council voted to mark the anniversary of the mass shooting with a resolution.

Council member Sandy Ewing brought the resolution to council with several co-sponsors.

"There is no world in which this will ever make sense to me," Ewing said about the shooting. "I think we all wish that the Covenant community had not had to face this, that they had not lost the people they love, but they did. And their lives are forever changed."

The language of the resolution honors victims Hallie Scruggs, Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, school custodian Mike Hill, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, and Head of School Katherine Koonce.

The resolution also acknowledges the swift response of the Metro Nashville Police Department to the scene and the Brentwood Hills Church of Christ for serving as a temporary location for the school in the aftermath of the shooting.

Resolution acknowledges overtime pay grant for Covenant shooting first responders

Another resolution passed on Tuesday officially accepted a grant from the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration to cover the costs associated with overtime pay for first responders to the scene of the Covenant School shooting.

The grant totals $123,677 and will offset Metro's cost in overtime wages paid to first responders associated with the response to the shooting and the following investigation.

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The money will be appropriated to the Metro Nashville Police Department. Funding for the grant came from the Emergency Federal Law Enforcement Assistance program.

Voices for a Safer Tennessee plans citywide protest

A citywide demonstration is planned for the anniversary of the Covenant School shooting. Participants plan to wear red and link arms, creating a human chain starting at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt through Centennial Park and up Charlotte Avenue to the state capitol building.

The event, named "Linking Arms for Change," is planned by Voices for a Safer Tennessee, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that advocates for gun safety and was formed in the wake of the Covenant School shooting.

A similar event took place April 18, 2023, amid several other protests through the streets of Nashville and within the state capitol in the weeks following the Covenant shooting.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Council marks anniversary of Covenant School shooting