Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea Myles is reviewing the unredacted and proposed redacted journal and other writings of the Covenant School killer ahead of Thursday’s scheduled status conference meeting, sources with knowledge of the case tell The Tennessee Star.
Myles has scheduled a Show Cause hearing for June 8 on the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department’s refusal to turnover what has commonly been referred to as the “manifesto” of Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who stormed into Nashville’s Covenant Presbyterian School on March 27 and fatally killed three 9-year-olds and three staff members.
Sources say the conference will allow parents and family members of the victims of Hale’s massacre to weigh in on the documents. Wallace Dietz, director of law for the Metropolitan Government for Nashville and Davidson County told News 2 the same.
“The status conference will be to address the progress of producing requested documents and the possibility of an ongoing document production. At the May 18 status conference, we expect the Chancellor to give us further directions about what she expects at or before the June 8 hearing,” Dietz said in a statement to News 2.
Late last week, Star News Digital Media Inc., parent company of The Tennessee Star, sued the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County seeking the release of Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale’s manifesto and related writings.
The lawsuit, filed in Tennessee’s 20th Judicial District Court-Davidson County on Wednesday, follows on the heels of Star News Digital Media’s federal lawsuit demanding the FBI turn over the documents that law enforcement officials have kept locked away from the public for seven weeks.
Metro Nashville, through the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, “has violated the Tennessee Public Records Act by failing to provide the records” that The Tennessee Star has requested, writes Nicholas R. Barry, attorney for America First Legal Foundation, the Washington, D.C.-based civil rights law firm representing Star News Digital Media.
The Tennessee Firearms Association and the National Police Association have filed separate lawsuits against Metro Nashville demanding the police department turn over Hale’s manifesto. Myles has consolidated the two earlier cases.
Douglas Pierce, attorney for private investigator Clata Renee Brewer, a plaintiff in the National Police Association lawsuit, last week said the intervening step appears to be another “roadblock” in the pursuit of the release of the manifesto, journals and other writings to learn what was going through the mind of Hale — a 28-year-old woman who reportedly identified as a transgender male — before her deadly errand.
Myles originally had set the show cause hearing for last week.
The delay in the release of the Hale manifesto has led to speculation, including theories that President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is playing politics with the investigation — and the records attached to it. As someone who identified as transgender, Hale doesn’t fit the left’s usual narrative of a school shooter, critics say. LGBTQ+ groups early on warned the release of the manifesto could lead to serious consequences.
Tennessee Republican lawmakers have argued for the immediate release of the records.
State Representative Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) said with the Tennessee General Assembly’s special session on proposed gun laws set for Aug 21, “it is imperative that @MNPDNashville release the manifesto from the Covenant shooter.”
“We must be equipped with all the facts related to the horrific evil committed at Covenant. The MNPD has been incredible through such difficult circumstances. We as state lawmakers need their cooperation and transparency in providing us with the manifesto, which may contain insight in to what led to the murder of 6 Tennesseans at Covenant,” the lawmaker wrote in a tweet Friday.
Zachary added that the General Assembly will need to consider legislative steps on transparency during the special session “if the manifesto is not yet released.”
Now that the #TNGA has the specific date of August 21st for a special session, it is imperative that @MNPDNashville release the manifesto from the Covenant shooter. We must be equipped with all the facts related to the horrific evil committed at Covenant. The MNPD has been… pic.twitter.com/gs5cFsK0Xe
— Rep. Jason Zachary (@JasonZacharyTN) May 12, 2023
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
