Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday that it’s too early for the Justice Department to say whether the horrific shooting at a Christian school in Nashville should be considered a hate crime.
Mr. Garland said the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are looking at the incident in cooperation with local authorities.
“We are certainly working full-time with them to try to determine what the motive is, and motive determines whether it’s a hate crime,” the attorney general said in testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
His answers came in response to Sen. John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican, who wanted to know if the Justice Department would open a hate crimes investigation even though the shooting suspect is dead.
Local authorities say the shooter, whom they identified as Audrey Hale, killed three adults and three children at The Covenant School, which is associated with the Presbyterian Church.
Authorities said the 28-year-old suspect was a former student and seemed to have targeted the school, though the children and adults killed were chosen randomly. Nashville’s police chief said the shooter was transgender.
Police shot and killed the shooter roughly 14 minutes after the first 911 call about the incident.
