Tearful Melissa Joan Hart describes how she helped kindergarteners run to safety after Nashville shooting
Melissa Joan Hart tearfully revealed how she helped kindergartners run to safety on Monday, after the shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.
The 46-year-old actor reflected on the incident in a video posted to her Instagram on Tuesday, as she currently lives in Nashville with her husband, Mark Wilkerson, and their three sons: Mason, 17, Braydon, 15, and Tucker, 15. Her comments came one day after the shooting at The Covenant School, which left three children and three adults dead.
In her video, Hart noted that her children weren’t in school on Monday, as there were parent-teacher conferences going on. However, she said that while she and her husband were driving to the school, they noticed a few kindergartners from The Covenant School and offered to help them.
“We helped a class of kindergartners across a busy highway,” she said, as her voice started to break. “They were climbing out of the woods. They were trying to escape the shooter situation at their school.”
She continued: “So we helped all these tiny little kids cross the road and get their teachers over there, and we helped a mom reunite with her children.”
The Sabrina The Teenage Witch star said that she was at a loss for words about the incident and sent prayers to the families who are a part of The Covenant School community.
“I just don’t know what to say anymore,” she added. “Enough is enough. And just pray. Prayer for the families.”
Hart emphasised her sentiments in the caption, writing: “Prayers today, Action tomorrow.”
At the start of her clip, she also recalled that prior to her move to Tennessee, her family lived in Connecticut. She said that they were in close proximity Sandy Hook Elementary school during the 2012 shooting, where 20 children were killed.
Hart also reflected on her experience after the Nashville based shooting in a new episode of her podcast, What Women Binge. She detailed how she felt and spoke to a young girl, when helping her cross the street of the highway.
“This little girl looked at me, and she said: ‘What are we doing? What’s going on?’ And I was like, ‘We’re just going to cross the road,’” the actor said. “It’s really quickly dawning on me, this is not a fire drill. They are running across the road, something is going on, really bad. Something is worse behind them, then crossing this street and putting children on the side of basically a highway.”
The No Good Nick star noted that as the kids crossed the highway, all the cars “just stopped”. She also said that when she got to the school, the police had not yet arrived.
Along with Hart, many other celebrities have called for action after the school shooting. Josh Brolin took to Instagram to plead for increased gun control laws in the country.
“ENOUGH!!!!!! Whether you’re a ‘It’s the people not the guns’ or a ‘It’s the guns, not the people’ to say that our country is actively doing anything in its power to help avert this absolute random slaughter of our children, categorises you in either total denial or living some fantasy of ambush that should render you unfit to take care of yourself or others,” the No Country for Old Men star wrote.
Country singer Leann Rimes also took to Twitter to express her sadness and anger over the mass shooting.
“There are no words, just rage and heartbreak for these children and their families,” she wrote. “I can’t even fathom what is this doing to the psyches of every child and parent in this country. Absolute terror every time a child goes to a place that should be safe.”
On 27 March, three children aged nine – Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney – were shot dead at the Christian elementary school, as were staff members Katherine Koonce, 60, Mike Hill, 61, and Cynthia Peak, 61. The shooter, who has been identified as Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old and former student at the school, was killed at the scene by police officers.
