Hearing Set to Determine Public Release of Covenant Shooter’s Documents

The date to argue whether documents should be released has been pushed beyond the one-year anniversary of the tragedy

An ambulance leaves Covenant School, Covenant Presbyterian Church, in Nashville, Tenn., on March 27, 2023. John Amis/AP Photo

A date has been set to resume the trial court proceedings in the case that could force the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) to release the writings left behind by the Covenant School shooter.

The shooter entered the Covenant School, a private Christian school located on the campus of Covenant Presbyterian Church, on March 27, 2023, and killed three 9-year-old children and three adults. The shooter was also killed at the scene by responding officers.

Proceedings briefly resumed on Monday, Jan. 29, in order for Davidson County Chancellor I'Ashea Myles to set future dates, as the trial court proceedings had been paused since last summer following the case’s transfer to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

Parties appealed an earlier ruling by Ms. Myles, which allowed third parties—including The Covenant School, parents and victims, and the Covenant Presbyterian Church—to intervene in the case and present arguments regarding their objections to the release of the documents.

In November, the appeals court ruled that Ms. Myles did not err in allowing the third parties to intervene. The decision moved the case, now with the additional parties, back to the county’s chancery court.

On Monday, Ms. Myles—in agreement with parties representing Metro Nashville on one side and media outlets along with others seeking to force the MNPD to release documents on the other—decided to set the show cause hearing for April 16 and 17, which is more than one year after the shooting.

The hearing will mark the first time the court hears the merits of the case in oral arguments, as these have not yet been presented. The immediate appeal of the court’s decision to allow intervention led to a higher court issuing a stay. This stay, issued back in June, halted all proceedings while the appeal process unfolded.

The court noted availability in March, but Ms. Myles and her attorneys expressed a desire to avoid scheduling court dates on or near the anniversary of the shooting.

Years-Long Document Battle

In the days after the shooting, MNPD chief John Drake said the shooter, a female-to-male transgender former student, left behind a litany of documents, going as far as saying she left behind a “manifesto.”

Various public records requests, including those submitted by The Epoch Times, were denied, citing a Tennessee rule that allows public records to be withheld amid ongoing investigations even though the shooter was killed at the scene of the shooting.

Subsequent legal battles have centered on the public release of the shooter’s writings and the extent of the right to information that Tennesseans are afforded under the Tennessee Public Records Act.

The situation escalated in November with the unauthorized leak of some documents, confirmed as authentic by Nashville police.

In December, Mr. Drake announced that MNPD had “exhausted all available investigative avenues to identify the person who leaked photographs containing three pages of writings from the Covenant School shooter.”

Earlier this month, MNPD told a Nashville news outlet that ten officers who were previously under review for possibly leaking the documents were being reassigned to different departments.

Leak Showed Hate-Fueled Attack

The pages, shared in November by podcaster Steven Crowder, detailed what could have been years of hate-fueled planning of the attack.

In one page, Ms. Hale, who was also known as Aiden, said she was nearly “caught” planning the attack, “especially back in the summer of 2021.”

The writings, which Mr. Drake initially referred to as a “manifesto” in the days after the attack and later referred to as a “series of writings,” include various references to murdering children whom she referred to as “crackers,” a racial slur for white people.

The home of the Nashville Christian School shooter in a south Nashville neighborhood, on March 31, 2023. Chase Smith/The Epoch Times

She also referred to the children as having “white [privilege]” while going to “fancy private schools” with their “fancy khakis and sports backpacks” in their parents’ “mustangs and convertables [sic].”

Ms. Hale used the name Audrey and Aiden on different pages that were leaked; she used the name Aiden on a page seemingly written on the day of the shooting.

That morning, she allegedly wrote that “the day has finally come” and that she was “a little nervous, but excited too.” She wrote that she had “been excited for the past 2 weeks” indicating further that the attack was planned.

“Can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m ready … I hope my victims aren’t. My only fear is if anything goes wrong, I’ll do my best to prevent any [sic] of the sort,” she wrote.

She ended her “death day” page with the wish that she would “have a high death count” and wrote that she was “ready to die.”

Objections to Release Mounted

Attorneys for the families of Covenant victims asserted in the appellate hearing that the release of the shooter’s manifesto could have devastating psychological impacts on the surviving victims and their families.

“The simple fact is that the record that we have presented shows that there is a very real risk that if the shooter’s writings are released, one or more children may harm themselves,” Eric Osborne, attorney for the Covenant School families, told the appellate court in October oral arguments. “It has happened time and time in the past from school shootings, and we have a unique opportunity here to try to prevent these writings from coming out to try to protect these children.”

Attorneys representing media outlets argued that allowing more parties to participate would make the suit too crowded, hindering a timely appeal regarding the original public records request denial. They argued that this could create a precedent contrary to the Tennessee Public Records Act’s (TPRA) intent of resolving public records disputes swiftly.

Attorney Lora Fox, representing Metro Nashville, disagreed, stating it is “not going to be a situation where every public records request turns out to become a two-year process,” indicating the length of time she believes this public records dispute may last.

Ms. Fox emphasized that intervention is not about slowing down the public records process but ensuring that when “such an important interest in protecting private information” is at stake, those persons should have a voice.

“The families say no, under the exceptions that they assert, and their constitutional rights, they argue that none of the investigation files should become a public record,” Ms. Fox argued. “And so not only do I not represent them, but Metro has a different position than the victims in this case.”

She added: “This is an ongoing criminal investigation, but that criminal investigation will end at some point in the relatively near future. The school safety exception has been asserted, the school and the families who are the victims at that school are allowed by law to participate.”