DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Channel 2 Action News has obtained video of inside McNair Elementary School during which a man opened fire in 2013.
Michael Brandon Hill is accused of walking into Ronald. E McNair Discovery Learning Academy on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2013 armed with multiple guns.
Newly released surveillance video shows Hill walking into the school after being let in the front door by a woman with a child.
Police said Hill confronted office staff around 1 p.m. and told bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff to call the local media. She told a Channel 2 Action News Employee that the gunman wanted the news to "start filming as police die."
Police said Hill opened fire at the school and was armed with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, but he was eventually apprehended peacefully.
No students, faculty or law enforcement officers were injured in the ordeal.
Hill was sentenced to 40 years in prison, with 20 to serve.
Channel 2's Amy Napier Viteri took the video to the neighborhood around the school, and shared it with people who were there that day.
The neighbors who watched the surveillance video of what happened that day brought back memories as they watched Hill carrying a concealed AK-47 get into the school when a parent leaving with her child courteously held the door open for him.
“Most people would have done that. I mean, because you don't know. It was just a guy coming in with a bag you don't know,” said neighbor James Mack.
People in the neighborhood said it's something most parents would have done without thinking. The video then shows Hill go into the school office and pull out the weapon as school secretary Antoinette Tuff tries to get out of the way.
“We ended up spending the rest of the day out in the street waiting to come in about four hours later,” Mack said.
Mack lives across the street from the school and remembers the chaos that day trying to get home. But this is the first time he's seen the video of what Hill did inside. At one point, Hill fires the gun when a male employee comes into the office.
“It could have been bad, it could have been worse than what it was,” Mack said.
Hill also shot at arriving officers from the school's front door before returning to the office and waiting as officers stormed in and arrested him.
Others in the neighborhood said they felt Hill's sentence was fair, given the risk he took bringing a gun into a building full of children.