Former Pastor: School Shooter Not Known by Victim’s Dad

A former Covenant School pastor sparked several misleading headlines after mistakenly saying that Nashville shooter Audrey Hale had been counseled by the father of one of the victims and that the shooter had “targeted his daughter.”

Former Covenant School pastor Jim Bachmann claimed in an interview with Inside Edition that Chad Scruggs, the father of 9-year-old Hallie Scruggs, “was providing counseling for her and something didn’t sit right with her and so she targeted his daughter and perhaps his two sons who attend another private school.”

The claim was repeated by outlets like The Daily Mail and The Telegraph before Bachmann clarified that “they were not counseling,” after being contacted by representatives from the school.

Bachmann told The New York Post that “these last two days I’ve had several messages from an assortment of people that not only was there no counseling between those two, that he didn’t even know her.”

Law enforcement in Nashville stated that the motive for the shooting is currently unknown, though they are studying what they describe as a manifesto written by Hale before the shootings.