The Tennessee Star on Thursday filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requesting the FBI provide all of its internal records regarding “legacy tokens,” including those related to the May 2023 memo that “strongly” advised the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) not to release documents like the manifesto left by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the biological woman who identified as a transgender man when she killed six at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023.
Obtained by The Star last June, the May 11, 2023 memo was addressed to MNPD Chief John Drake and sent from the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, part of the agency’s Critical Incident Response Group, from an address in Quantico, Virginia.
The document claimed that releasing “legacy tokens,” which the agency defined in 2018 as any records left by a mass killer that could explain their actions, would contribute to future attacks, fail to provide closure to victims and their families, and “facilitate false narratives and inaccurate information,” potentially leading “to unintended consequences for the segment of the population more vulnerable or open to conspiracy theories.”
Now, eight months after the FBI declined to confirm the authenticity of the document while simultaneously acknowledging such communications between the agency and local police departments, The Star filed a FOIA request seeking the agency’s version of the memo and the name of the FBI employees who produced, authorized, and sent it to Drake.
The Star is additionally seeking copies of all memos the FBI sent to law enforcement agencies throughout the country which contain the terms “Legacy Token” or “Legacy Tokens” in the subject line.
In addition to information about memos to local law enforcement that advise against release of case materials, The Star is seeking answers about how the FBI adopted its policy for “legacy tokens,” with questions related to the 2018 FBI document that defined “legacy tokens” publicly.
The 2018 document, “A Study of the Pre-Attack Behaviors of Active Shooters in the United States,” which was written by two FBI agents and a university professor, explained that “legacy tokens” have “been defined as a communication prepared by the offender to claim credit for the attack and articulate the motives underlying the shooting.”
According to the FBI study, “Examples of legacy tokens include manifestos, videos, social media postings, or other communications deliberately created by the shooter and delivered or staged for discovery by others, usually near in time to the shooting.”
The study noted that 30 percent of mass shooters generally produce such items prior to their attacks.
In a bid to learn more about the genesis of the agency’s internal policy to suppress the writings of mass killers, The Star is seeking all internal FBI communications related to the authorization and creation of the 2018 study, including how it was procured.
The Star legally obtained Hale’s 2023 journal last June, a roughly 90-page document that revealed the killer’s obsession with transgenderism, years-long plot to attack the Christian elementary school she once attended, and her possible struggles with being “bi-polar” and being purportedly diagnosed with autism.
Hale’s 2023 journal was published by The Star last September, but her full writings reportedly number around 1,000 pages.
Additional police documents obtained by The Star revealed that Hale was a 22-year mental health patient, and was evaluated for psychiatric commitment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, one of the practices where she received therapy.
Both Star News Digital Media, Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Star, and editor-in-chief Michael Patrick Leahy are plaintiffs in the ongoing federal lawsuit seeking to compel the FBI to release Hale’s full writings. The judge in that case has been conducting a review of Hale’s writings since last April.
FBI Director Kash Patel previously stated that it was the sole decision of the agency’s leader to preclude the release of Hale’s full documents in December 2023, and The Star has offered to drop its lawsuit if Patel’s agency agrees to drop its opposition to the lawsuit.
The request was sent before Patel was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, though attorneys for Leahy and SNDM sent an additional inquiry to the Department of Justice, urging Patel to drop the FBI’s opposition to the release of Hale’s writings, after both he and Attorney General Pam Bondi were confirmed. The DOJ previously confirmed the FBI is considering the offer.
Leahy and SNDM are also plaintiffs in the state lawsuit seeking to compel MNPD to release the manifesto. A judge ruled against Leahy and his co-defendants, including multiple other media outlets and a Tennessee state lawmaker, but expects to win the case on appeal.
Ahead of Patel’s confirmation, a source familiar with the investigation told The Star that an MNPD police captain ordered officers who searched the Hale residence on the day of her attack not to complete normal evidence handling procedures, and that the FBI spirited away evidence without establishing a chain of custody.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
