Gut-wrenching day for families of the Covenant School

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - Monday was an emotional day for many, especially those with people they love inside the school. So many of them dropped everything they were doing and headed straight there.

“There was so many police cars and ambulances coming away from the school,” Caroline Rigsby, who works in Green Hills, said.

The sound of sirens filled Green Hills Monday as parents flocked to the Covenant School desperate to know if their children were OK.

“There are no words,” Rigsby said. “They weren’t letting parents up there. They were just running up the street.”

Three children and three staff members did not make it home. It is a feeling Shaundelle Brooks knows all too well.

“I am angry because I know what these parents are going to be feeling,” Brooks said.

Her son, Akilah Desilva, was killed in the Waffle House shooting. Monday, she feared she would lose another son.

“Every time something like this happens, it triggers me,” Brooks said. “I came running out here. My son’s school is locked down. I didn’t know if the shooter was still running around. It is ridiculous.

WSMV4 saw trucks of law enforcement pass through and armed officers canvassing the woods around the school after eliminating the threat inside.

“I don’t know how someone could go through with doing something like that,” Avery Myrick said.

Myrick’s mom is a pre-k teacher at the Covenant School.

“I texted her and I said, ‘what is going on,’” Myrick said. “She told me that she was hiding in a closet, and there was shooting all over. They potentially tried to get in the room, and she said she loved us.”

Myrick’s mom made it out alive.

“It definitely made me think over some things,” Myrick said. “I would definitely not want this to be the last time I ever spoke to her so it made me reflect.”

It is a reality no family should have to face.

“There aren’t any words,” Rigsby said. “I don’t know how parents will get through it.”

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