Melissa Joan Hart Helped Kids Flee the Nashville School Shooting and Brought Them to Safety: They ‘Were Trying to Escape’

Melissa Joan Hart, the actor who became a ’90s teen icon thanks to her roles on Nickelodeon’s “Clarissa Explains It All” and ABC’s “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” revealed in an emotional Instagram video that she helped young children and teachers escape the Nashville school shooting on March 27. Three adults and three 9-year-old children were killed by the 28-year-old Audrey Hale at Nashville’s Covenant School. The shooter was shot and killed by police on site.

“My kids go to school right next to a school where there was a shooting today,” Hart said in the Instagram video. “My husband and I were on our way to [their] school for conferences. Luckily our kids weren’t in today.”

Hart, who lives in Nashville, spotted children fleeing the Covenant School during the drive and stopped to help bring them to safety.

“We helped a class of kindergartners across a busy highway that were climbing out of the woods, that were trying to escape the shooter situation at their school,” the actor said while fighting back tears. “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.”

Hart also revealed she moved to Nashville from Connecticut, where “we were in a school a little ways down fromSandy Hook.” The actor was referring to the 2012 elementary school shooting that killed 20 children and six adults.

“So this is our second experience with a school shooting with our kids being in close proximity,” Hart added. “I just don’t know what to say anymore. It is just, enough is enough… Pray for the families.”

Many members of Nashville’s country music scene spoke out against the state’s gun laws following the Covenant School shooting. Singer-songwriterMargo Pricetweeted at Tennessee Gov. Bill Leeand questioned his choice to pass the permit-less handgun carry bill, which allows anyone 21 years or older to legally possess a weapon.

“Our children are dying and being shot in school but you’re more worried about drag queens than smart gun laws?” Price wrote, referring to Lee’s ban on gender-affirming health care for minors, along with a bill he signed that limits drag show performances in Tennessee. While the bill doesn’t implicitly use the word “drag,” it forbids drag performances by male or female impersonators who, as the law defines it, provide entertainment that is “harmful to minors.”

Watch Hart’s full video in the post below.