'Enough is enough': Melissa Joan Hart reveals helping kindergarteners escape Nashville school shooting
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE: Following the Nashville school shooting, Melissa Joan Hart is talking about her experience leading frightened children to safety. In a tearful Instagram video, Hart recounted seeing children running out of The Covenant School as she and her husband, Mark Wilkerson, were heading to parent-teacher meetings at her children's adjacent school.
The Nashville-based actress and mother of three revealed that the Covenant School, the scene of the tragedy, is "right next door" to where her children go to school, reported People. Three students and three employees were killed in the Nashville shooting incident. Police shot and killed the shooter on the spot.
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'Enough is enough'
Hart mentioned in the video on her verified Instagram account that they formerly resided close to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where a shooter killed 26 people in 2012. "We moved here from Connecticut where we were in school a little ways down from Sandy Hook, so this is our second experience with a school shooting with our kids being in close proximity," Hart said in the Instagram video. "Luckily we are all okay." She revealed that she and her husband Mark Wilkerson, with whom she shares children Mason, 17, Braden, 15, and Tucker, 10, were present during the incident and helped young children who "were trying to escape."
The 46-year-old 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' star was visibly tearful in the clip, saying, "My husband and I were on our way to school for conferences. Luckily our kids weren't in today," Hart added. "We helped a class of Kindergartners across a busy highway. They were climbing out of the woods, they were trying to escape a shooter situation at their school. So we helped these tiny little kids cross the road and get their teachers over there."
Hart concluded the video by saying, "We helped a mom reunite with her children and I just ... I don't know what to say. Enough is enough. Just pray, pray for the families."
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Hart stated her decision to hold off on posting the clip in the caption. She wrote, "Prayers today, action tomorrow. This was too raw to post yesterday but wanted you to hear this story." The American actress also shared a poem on her Instagram story dedicated to "every teacher," which indicates the Nashville shooting incident.
The Nashville shooting
On Monday morning, transgender 28-year-old Audrey Halle, a former student of the private Christian school in Nashville, opened fire through barred doors, carrying two assault weapons and a handgun, as per NBC News,. Just 14 minutes after the shooting started, cops confronted the attacker and shot him dead, as per authorities.
Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kenney, and Hallie Scruggs, three 9-year-old schoolchildren, were recognized by authorities as the three children killed. The shooting also claimed the lives of school principal Katherine Koonce, 60, custodian Michael Hill, 61, and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61.
According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a mass shooting is considered an occurrence in which four or more individuals are shot, irrespective of the number of fatalities, and as of Monday morning, there had been 128 mass shootings in 2023.