Semiautomatic gunfire echoed in the hallways of The Covenant School, making a distinct noise teachers there would not soon forget.
That was more than 14 months ago – before three children and three adults were gunned down on Monday in the stately stone school connected to Covenant Presbyterian Church, atop a tree-shrouded hill just south of downtown Nashville.
The active shooter training session ended with live gunfire intended to familiarize school staff with real gunshots if they ever heard them.
“Blanks don’t sound the same. They just don’t,” said security consultant Brink Fidler, whose firm conducted the exercise. A bullet trap the trainers wheeled around captured the rounds of a semiautomatic pistol and an AR-15-style rifle loaded with real ammunition.
When a handful of teachers heard the very first shot of Monday’s rampage they initially mistook it for the din of ongoing construction at the building.