Critics and press freedom advocates have long theorized that the reason authorities have refused to make public a manifesto written by the mass shooter who targeted a Nashville Christian school was because the shooter was a transgender man and appeared motivated by left-wing extremist ideas. This week’s bombshell leak did nothing to dispel such speculation.
 
The three handwritten pages posted by conservative talk-show host Steven Crowder this week offered a motive for the deadly March 27 Covenant School shooting — the perpetrator wrote of wanting to kill white kids with “privileges”— but no answers as to why law enforcement officials have fought so hard to keep under wraps the writings of 28-year-old Aiden Hale, born Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who was killed by police in the incident.
 
Attorney Dan Lennington, who represents a Tennessee media outlet suing to obtain the manifesto, said the disclosure has only strengthened the perception of a political double-standard when it comes to mass-shooter manifestos.
 
“The FBI has orchestrated manifesto releases in the past where it benefits them, but apparently when it relates to some narrative they don’t like, they don’t release it,” Mr. Lennington, deputy counsel for the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, told The Washington Times.
 
His organization sued the FBI in federal court on behalf of Star News Digital Media, owner of the Tennessee Star, under the Freedom of Information Act. The agency said it denied the outlet’s request for the manifesto because its release “could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”
 
Mr. Lennington was skeptical. The expletive-riddled writings of Hale appear to contain nothing that would compromise an investigation. What’s more, he said, any sensitive information could have been “crossed out with a Sharpie, which is common.”
 
“I don’t see why the FBI needs to say, the public can’t know that [Hale] called those three little nine-year-old kids ‘crackers’ that have white privilege and need to die,” he said. “What purpose is there in withholding that other than a political purpose?”
 
Police said shortly after the deadly shooting that Hale, a former student of the school, identified as transgender, spurring calls on the left for authorities to keep a lid on the manifesto over fears that it could create a backlash against the LGBTQ community.
 
Nearly eight months later, the manifesto has yet to be released, even though law enforcement has a history of releasing the writings of other perpetrators of mass shooting events. Others have been posted online, including the May 2022 Buffalo shooter’s 180-page screed espousing white supremacist views.
 
Mr. Lennington cited three cases since October 2022 involving the FBI where media outlets gained access to mass-shooting manifestos within one day to three weeks. All three cases involved culprits who like Hale were killed at the scene.
 
Meanwhile, the city of Nashville is fighting a consolidated lawsuit filed in state court by a host of media outlets, elected officials and advocacy groups to compel the manifesto’s release under the Tennessee Public Records Act.
 
Doug Pierce, attorney for the National Police Association, the lead plaintiff in the state case, said he saw nothing in the three pages posted by Mr. Crowder that would support the city’s reasons for concealing the writings, which include the ongoing investigation and school-safety concerns.
 
Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake had previously indicated that the shooter drew a map of the school, but there was no such image in the leaked pages. Even if there were, the drawing could have easily been redacted, said Mr. Pierce.
 
“The problem is there’s this great public interest, and it’s not being released, so reasonable people are entitled to say, ‘Hey, what’s going on here? What’s being covered up?’ And it creates suspicion,” said Mr. Pierce.

Probing the leak
 
Mr. Crowder posted online Monday photos of three pages he said were from Hale’s journal. The final entry entitled “Death Day” was dated March 27, the day Hale shot up the Christian school, killing three third-graders and three staff members before being gunned down by Nashville police.
 
Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell and Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake promptly launched investigations into the leaked pages and defended the decision to withhold the manifesto, citing pending litigation.
 
“We are not at liberty to release the journals until the courts rule,” Chief Drake said in a statement. “Our police department looks forward to the ultimate resolution of the litigation concerning the journals.”
 
Chief Drake also said he was “greatly disturbed by [Monday’s] unauthorized release of three pages of writings from the Covenant shooter,” essentially confirming the authenticity of the documents.
 
Even so, YouTube removed Mr. Crowder’s video containing images of the pages, saying it violates the platform’s policy against video that “glorifies violent criminal organizations or incites violence.” Mr. Crowder said Facebook has also censored the images.
 
Also fighting the manifesto’s release are the Covenant School and many of its parents. Brent Leatherwood, the father of three children at the school, called the anonymous leaker a “viper” who has allowed the shooter to “terrorize us with words from the grave.”
 
“We saw this in Allen, Texas, where that shooter referenced the Covenant shooter. How many more people have to be killed in a senseless way so that you can get clicks?” asked Mr. Leatherwood at a press briefing.
 
Hale left behind an extensive collection of writings, including more than 20 journals, a suicide note and a memoir, according to the Associated Press, citing court filings.
 
Seven officers were placed Thursday on “administrative assignment to protect the integrity of the active, progressing investigation,” department spokesperson Don Aaron told WSMV-TV in Nashville, adding that the measure was “absolutely non-punitive.”
 
The National Police Association is also seeking communications between the police and outside parties to determine whether the department “has failed to conform to the Tennessee public records law due to outside political pressure.”
 
The source of such pressure is no mystery. Jordan Budd, executive director of Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere, told Newsweek in a March 28 article that the manifesto “should not be published.”
 
“The focus should be on how this was able to happen in the first place,” he said. “There should not be such easy access to deadly weaponry.”
 
Marisa Richmond, a Middle Tennessee State University gender-studies professor, told CBC News in an April 1 article there was an “incredible escalation of the fear factor” about retaliation against the transgender community.
 
Mr. Crowder said that “no one should target members of the LGBTQ+ community,” especially with violence, but that it was important for the truth to come out.
 
“The issue is not just the lies that people see, but the lies of omission,” he said in an interview with Fox17 in Nashville. “When it’s not a convenient shooting for them, then they move right past it. If there’s even a whiff of what they could present as white supremacy, then by God, we’ve got to do that so this administration can create a task force.”
 
Asked why his source decided to leak the pages, Mr. Crowder said “I can tell you their exact words: Because it’s the right thing to do. That’s what they said.”
 
“And they were willing to take a risk because they believed it was the right thing to do,” he added. “And there are a lot of people out there who feel the same way.”

• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.