Pages from the Nashville Covenant School shooter’s manifesto have been released by popular conservative podcaster Steven Crowder. The release comes seven months after Audrey Hale, 28, killed six people, including three children, at the school in March.
According to police, Hale was born female and identified as transgender.
Court documents show that Hale left behind more than a dozen journals, a suicide note and a memoir.
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On the day of the shooting, Nashville’s Police Chief John Drake confirmed police had the writings in possession.
Drake appeared on “CBS Morning” on March 28, the day after the shooting.
“So, we have a manifesto,” Drake told CBS. “We have a booklet that shows exactly what she had planned to do. We have maps that show the entry point into the school.”
In the months following the shooting, several organizations filed lawsuits, calling for the release of Hale’s manifesto. The organizations cited that the public has a right to know what Hale wrote and left behind.
Over the summer, victims’ parents also filed declarations to prevent the release of the manifesto. The parents argued that the manifesto release could inspire copycat shooters.
Then on Nov. 6, more than seven months later, “Louder with Crowder” host Steven Crowder detailed three pages of Hale’s writings on his show.
The images of the writings say in part:
“Kill those kids!!!
Those crackers
Going to private fancy schools
With those fancy kwakis [sic] and sports backpacks
With their daddies mustangs and convertables [sic]
Wanna kill all you little crackers
With your white privlages [sic]”
“Dark Abyss
Death day 03/27/23
Today is the day yes.
The day has finally come!
I can’t believe its here…
(God let my wrath take over my anxiety)
I hope I have a high death count.
Ready to die, haha”
“You have now allowed this woman, who terrorized our family with bullets, to now be able to terrorize us with words from the grave,” said Brent Leatherwood, a spokesperson claiming to represent Covenant families. “How could you? What kind of a person does this?”
“I am greatly disturbed by today’s unauthorized release of three pages of writings from the covenant shooter,” Chief Drake said in a statement regarding the leak. “This action showed a total disregard for Covenant families, as well as the court system, which has control of the shooter’s journals at the present time due to litigation filed earlier this year.”
Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell has ordered an investigation into how the images of Hale’s manifesto were released.
There is currently no national standard on how and when to release writings or manifestos from mass shooters. For example, in November 2022, a Virginia Walmart employee shot and killed 6 of his co-workers and police released his writings within a few days of the shooting. Then in February of 2023, a gunman shot and killed three people on the Michigan State campus, and within days, police released the killer’s writings.
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