Various parties are in the midst of legal proceedings seeking to force the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) to release the writings of Audrey Hale and other related documents concerning her assault on the Covenant School in March, including concerned citizens, nonprofit groups, media organizations, and even state legislators.
A special session of the legislature is set for August to focus on school safety following the March 27 shooting, which left three nine-year-olds and three adults dead at the hands of Hale.
State Sen. Todd Gardenhire, in his personal capacity, is one of many petitioners who have filed suit to force MNPD’s hand in releasing the records. Gardenhire filed his lawsuit alongside The Tennessean, a Nashville newspaper.
After a hearing in the case last Monday, the Legal Director for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, which encompasses MNPD, said he was “confused” as to why Gardenhire in particular filed suit.
Dietz told The Epoch Times in an email that one particular state statute affords legislators this right, but did not clarify what other statutes might be applicable to his comments.
Gardenhire: Metro is ‘Playing Games’
Gardenhire, who is the chairman of the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an interview with The Epoch Times that Dietz’s comments amounted to “playing games” and were disingenuous.“In order to see [those documents], you [have] to basically sign away your rights to ever repeat, to ever repeat anything you [see] in those files,” Gardenhire said in the interview. “So this guy is playing games. He knows if I say I want to, and I’ve been offered to see them, if I take a look at those files under those circumstances, I cannot use that information to help draft public policy. And they know it.”
He continued, saying that Dietz ought to be “ashamed of himself” for trying to play games with legislators and should “follow the law.”
Gardenhire went on to say that he and the local Tennessean newspaper were seeking a smaller and less broad pool of information than other petitioners, only requesting information on Hale—not the children, the parents, or the school itself.
“As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, if anything gets to my committee, I need to be in a position to know how do we solve the problem, not fix the symptoms,” he said. “And information on Audrey Hale, could be—and I say could—be important for us to know.”
He added that legislators want to know what Hale’s autopsy concludes, including what, if any, mental health medication medications she may have been taking.
Hale, according to police, identified as a transgender man, so it is unclear if she was taking any sort of hormone therapy in order to transition at the time of her assault on the school. Gardenhire said legislators are not focusing on any possible hormone drugs she may have been taking.
“It may not help us at all but by them stonewalling like they’re doing, it adds to all those various conspiracy theories that are out there. And those need to be put to rest one way or another.”
He added that several senators have seen what they have, but they said that “TBI doesn’t have all the records.”
What the Law Says
Tennessee Code 10-7-504 has a subsection for dealing with miscellaneous public records and exceptions to confidential records being viewed by legislators.“All investigative records of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation … shall be treated as confidential and shall not be open to inspection by members of the public,” the state law explains. “The information contained in such records shall be disclosed to the public only in compliance with a subpoena or an order of a court of record.”
Exemptions exist for elected members of the Tennessee General Assembly if inspection is directed through “a duly adopted resolution of either house or of a … committee of either house …”
“Any record inspected pursuant to this exception shall maintain its confidentiality throughout the inspection,” state law further states. “Records shall not be available to any member of the executive branch except to the governor and to those directly involved in the investigation in the specified agencies.”
Dietz Responds
Dietz pushed back, stating that a legislator who views the documents at MNPD may not disclose them to third parties. But there is “no reason” they cannot base “their legislation and votes on what they learn,” he said.“There is nothing in the law that prevents Senator Gardenhire from reviewing the police files and then drafting legislation or voting based on what he learns,” Dietz said in an email. “He just can’t divulge information publicly that’s part of an ongoing criminal investigation.”
Gardenhire said the confidentiality clause of the law is what would prevent legislators for using the information in the legislative process.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation did not specify an agency policy that would prevent information viewed in this manner from being used in the legislative process, and instead a spokeswoman referred The Epoch Times back to the original state law as described above.
