On March 27, 2023, a multi-victim shooting took place in Nashville, Tennessee at the Covenant Church / Covenant School which involved the murder of six individuals. On May 1, 2023, Tennessee Firearms Association and Sheriff (retired) James Hammond filed, with the assistance of Judicial Watch, an open records request with the Metropolitan Police Department to obtain copies of the shooter’s “manifesto” and other materials that had been collected by the Metropolitan Police Department that might be relevant to the shooter’s motives and that would be important to efforts by Governor Bill Lee and some Republican Legislators to immediately push for the passage of a “Red Flag” law in Tennessee.
The open records litigation has been pending now for more than a year in Davidson County Chancery Court with no resolution. The litigation has however taken several curious turns that are abnormal in open records cases. For example, the Covenant School, the Covenant Church, an anonymous group identified as the Covenant parents have all been allowed by the Court to intervene in the case in order to assert that the investigative records, including the writing of the shooter, should never, ever be made public. Several other private schools (Franklin Road Academy, Road Academy, Montgomery Bell Academy, Oak Hill School, and St. Paul Christian Academy), District Attorney Glenn Funk and a former member of Covenant Church, Austin Davis, have all filed motions for leave to file amicus briefs.
The Chancery Court conducted the show cause hearing starting on April 16, 2024, but has not issued any ruling since that time on the merits of the open records petitions.
Although the Chancery Court has not made a merits decision on the release of the records, records concerning the Covenant matter do seem to be recently available to at least some news media sources.
On June 3, 2024, Tennessee Star issued a report titled “Psychologist Who Allegedly Failed to Report Violent Threats from Covenant Killer Audrey Hale Identified, Claims Practice Closed in 2022” Citing a Garet Davidson, a retired Metropolitan Police officer’s conversation with a radio station, the Tennessee Star reported “sources familiar with the investigation confirm that search warrants were run on the home and office of the therapist in an effort to obtain notes of the therapy sessions with the Covenant School shooter. One source says detectives have evidence that the shooter told the therapist about fantasies that involved, among other things, killing her parents and carrying out a school shooting of some kind….”
On June 4, 2024, Tennessee Star issued a report titled “Retired MNPD Lt. Garet Davidson Claims FBI Told Nashville Police Not to Release Documents from Covenant School Killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale Investigation, Pointed to Precedent for Document Destruction” Again citing Davidson, the Tennessee Star report states that Davidson stated in an interview with the Star’s Michael Patrick Leahy that the “FBI sent a memo to Police Chief John Drake in May of 2023, … instructing the department not to release certain materials from the Covenant School shooting investigation and instead pointed out to the MNPD the precedent for destroying such documents.” That FBI memo was just days after the TFA filed its open records lawsuit. It also raises concerns about whether federal officials have made suggestions to Metro officials (and also whether anyone has acted on those suggestions) that public records be intentionally destroyed by government officials with the objective of blocking or precluding public access to those records.
On June 4, 2024, the Tennessee Star issued a report titled “Psychologist Who Treated Covenant School Killer Audrey Hale Referred Patient to Vanderbilt After Violent Fantasies, Retired MNPD Officer Claims” This report, again based on statements by retired MNPD officer Davidson, states that the “psychologist who treated Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale referred her patient to Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) for treatment and involuntary commitment after Hale expressed violent fantasies.” The report continued “the psychologist who referred Hale to VUMC is the same psychologist previously identified by The Star who closed her practice on December 31, 2022, just 87 days before Hale committed the horrific shooting … There was communication, I believe, from the therapist to [Vanderbilt] Psych, and some of those records probably were shared. And [Vanderbilt] Psych records showed specific ideations, fantasies about mass shootings, doing that at the school,” According to the report, Davidson stated that he “was not involved with the case, [but] explained that he was given the opportunity to review documents from other sources and at various points in the investigation. He stressed that he does not have access to the documents himself.” The statements from Davidson raise the serious concern that at least some individuals who are not officials associated with the MNPD investigation, and thus had no reason to have access to these files and materials, were given or otherwise had access to the investigative files and materials. The fact that these medical records, which may have triggered a statutory duty to report, exist but have not been released may raise a question as to whether the victims of the crime may have civil liability claims against the medical care providers involved, including perhaps Vanderbilt, and, if so, whether MNPD’s concealment of this information may have allowed Tennessee’s 1 year statute of limitations to expire in favor those medical providers.
On June 5, 2024, Tennessee Star runs a report titled “FBI Memo on ‘Protection of Legacy Tokens’ Sent to Nashville Police in May 2023 Opposed Release of Covenant Killer Documents, Cited Destruction Precedent” This report contains a copy of the FBI’s memo to the MNPD that suggests that some of the seized records in the possession of the MNPD, which the FBI refers to as “legacy tokens”, could or should be permanently destroyed. Amazingly, the FBI cites as precedent the fact that certain seized records from the Columbine incident years ago were destroyed to keep the information from public access.
On June 5, 2024, Tennessee Star reports in a story titled “Audrey Hale Wrote Political Rant About Guns and Transgenderism One Month Before Covenant School Attack” and summarizes detailed content that it claims are directly from the documents that are the subject of the open records litigation but which MNPD has refused to release in that litigation. However, the Tennessee Star states “The Tennessee Star has obtained dozens of handwritten pages authored by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who committed the horrific Covenant School shooting on March 27, 2023. The Star reviewed nearly four dozen images of notebook pages written by Hale that were recovered from the vehicle she drove to the Covenant School which were obtained from a source familiar with the Covenant investigation.” The Tennessee Star does not state the source from which it obtained these records which are characterized as the writings of the Covenant shooter but it can reasonably be assumed that these records are somehow either from records seized by MNPD (that were not authorized for release), or are copies made before the MNPD took the shooter’s records into its official custody or perhaps are from records that at this time MNPD has not otherwise seized.
On June 5, 2024, Tennessee Star reports that “MNPD Subpoenaed Vanderbilt for All Records Related to Treating Covenant Killer Audrey Hale” In that report, the Tennessee Star cites a May 13, 2023, law enforcement subpoena to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for records pertaining to Audrey Hale.
On June 5, 2024, Tennessee Star reports “Report: Covenant School Shooter Fantasized About School Shootings as Middle Schooler” In this report, the Tennessee Star is summarizing a radio report that appears to be based on statements made by law enforcement to the reporter. In that summary, the Tennessee Star, quoting the radio host, states “There are no writings that the shooter used to explain the rationale for the attack on the school that fateful day, March 27 of 2023. But what police have uncovered are approximately … 20 journals, sometimes described as diaries. Now the writings began in middle school and continued up until the day of the shooting.” This report suggests that current or former law enforcement are sharing information with certain news (or opinion) outlets and/or that information originally sourced to law enforcement may have passed to third parties who are relaying this information about the Covenant shooting to these reporters.
On June 5, 2024, Tennessee Star reports in “Covenant School Shooter Audrey Hale Wrote ‘I Need a Trans Doctor’ 19 Days Before Attack” that Audrey Hale wrote in one of her writings 19 days before the Covenant shootings “her “need” for a “trans doctor”” which suggests that Tennessee Star has a source for the content of the shooter’s diaries and/or may have had access to some or all portions of the Ms. Hale’s writings itself. The report contains what appears to be several specific quotes and descriptions of the contents of the writings of Ms. Hale.
This series of reports, spanning just a few days now just barely more than a year (Tennessee has a 1 year statute of limitations on civil damages) after the Covenant shootings suggests that the information which MNPD and the Covenant parties have sought to block from public access may be in the hands of third party reporters who are preparing to release the information. If so, it will be interesting to see if it reveals a motive for all of the efforts by the Covenant parties to block this information from public access and/or if there are certain high ranking or other public officials who might have a motive to block public access.
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