Actress and Tennessee resident Melissa Joan Hart described helping young children cross a freeway near Covenant School in Nashville, where Monday’s recent US mass shooting took place at the private elementary school.
It was Hart’s second traumatic experience involving a shooting “in close proximity” to where her children were studying.
The Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch star embraced it Instagram on Tuesday to share her emotional experience after a 28-year-old attacker killed six people at the school, three of whom were 9-year-olds. Hart said Monday her video was “too raw to post” but wanted her 1.7 million followers to “hear that story.”
“My kids go to school right next to a school where there was a shooting today,” Hart, 46, said in the video she captured Monday.
“We took her away from Connecticut where we were at a school a bit further from Sandy Hook, so this is our second experience at a school where our kids are in close proximity. Luckily we’re all okay,” the mother of three added, referring to the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 20 children and several adults.
Hart said that she and her husband, Course of Nature musician Mark Wilkerson, were on their way to parent-teacher conferences at their children’s school Monday and ended up helping a class flee the shooting.
“We helped a class of preschoolers across a busy freeway, coming out of the woods and trying to escape the shooting at their school,” Hart said, fighting back tears.
“So we helped all these tiny little…kids cross the street and get their teachers over there. And we helped a mother reunite with her children and I don’t know what to say anymore. Enough is enough. And just pray, pray for the families.”
Several celebrities have spoken out in the wake of the recent tragedy. In a separate tweetHart tried to focus on being positive.
“I go into today declaring that the enemy will not be afraid,” she wrote on Tuesday. “This fear will not win! That my children will go to school with love in their hearts and appreciation for every breath and face they see. Hug a little tighter today!”
Alongside the three children who died, Covenant School principal Katherine Koonce, 60; substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; and Janitor Mike Hill, 61, were also killed during the attack. Police believe the gunman – who has been identified as former student Audrey Hale – “accidentally targeted” the six victims.
At a Tuesday news conference, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said authorities learned through interviews with the attacker’s parents that the shooter legally purchased seven firearms from five local gun stores. Three were used in the attack on the school, Drake said.
The parents said the shooter was “under medical attention for an emotional disorder,” Drake said. “Law enforcement was unaware of the treatment [the shooter] received, but the parents felt [the shooter] should have no weapons.”
Times staff Alexandra E. Petri And Terry Castleman contributed to this report.
Source : www.latimes.com