Parents of the three children killed in the Covenant Presbyterian School shootings are now seeking to intervene in lawsuits demanding the release of the Covenant killer’s manifesto and related documents.
And The Tennessee Star learned Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea Myles rescheduled Thursday’s conference status meeting on the lawsuits for 1 p.m. Monday. It’s yet another delay in an increasingly complex web of lawsuits, consolidations, and interventions over the mass shooter’s writings.
The parents’ motion, filed Wednesday in Chancery Court for Tennessee’s 20th Judicial District, is a raw, emotional appeal for Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea Myles to block the release of the writings or, at the very least, heavily redact them.
The motion claims an “overwhelming percentage of parents” are opposed to making the documents public, essentially arguing that the interests of the “victims and survivors of the Covenant School atrocity” outweigh the interests of the public to know what drove Audrey Elizabeth Hale to carry out her deadly errand.
“[N}o one was more traumatized, or has suffered more, than the families of the victims and survivors of the Covenant School atrocity. No one,” the motion asserts. “And no one can claim a remotely similar interest in whether the writings of the shooter be released.
Several attorneys from Nashville law firm Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison, PLC are representing the unidentified Covenant School parents. They claim the brief is filed on behalf of the parents of the children of the school who have “overwhelmingly come together to support this intervention.” The school and the Covenant Presbyterian Church also have sought to intervene in the case, citing the need to “protect its interests relating to the release of records sought in this matter.”
“This Brief is filed on behalf of the surviving children who lived through an unimaginable nightmare and who must deal with the repercussions of that nightmare for the rest of their lives. This Brief is filed on behalf of the overwhelming percentage of parents of those surviving children who have opted to join this intervention, all of whom—every day, when they embrace their kids in the morning and tuck them in at night—pray for healing and hope for safety while dealing with the reality that they have been forever changed and their sense of safety forever altered. This Brief is filed on behalf of families and a community forever fractured by the events of that terrible day,” states the Covenant parents’ motion, which claims that more than three-quarters of Covenant School families have expressed their desire to join the intervention.
The parents have come together “with one voice,” the motion declares, to lobby against the release of Hale’s writings, which they believe are the “dangerous and harmful writings of a mentally-damaged person.”
Plaintiffs in lawsuits — including The Star — argue the public has a critical interest in the release of the records, not the least of which is learning how to protect itself from future attacks. More so, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) is required to quickly turn over the documents under Tennessee Public Records laws.
“There’s nothing in the petition that indicates a statutory basis on which they have a claim for intervention,”, said John Harris, executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, one of multiple plaintiffs in the consolidated case in the Chancery Court. “Our hope is the court will look carefully at the statute and make a decision based on the law.”
TFA and former Hamilton County Sheriff James Hammond filed their lawsuit earlier this month seeking a court order finding the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County’s denial of TFA’s records requests is unlawful.
Another lawsuit filed by the National Police Association and a local private investigator has been consolidated with the Firearms Association/Hammond complaint.
Earlier this week, Tennessee First Circuit Court Judge David Briley granted the transfer of The Star’s lawsuit to Chancery Court.
The lawsuit, filed by Star News Digital Media Inc., parent company of The Star, will now be heard by Myles, who has the authority to move the lawsuit into the consolidated complaint.
MNPD has denied the records requests seeking Hale’s manifesto, citing Rule 16 and Tennessean v. Metro. Gov’t of Nashville, 485 S.W.3d 857 (Tenn. 2016) in support of the denial. The claim is that “state, federal, or other applicable law prohibits” disclosure of the records of an ongoing or underlying criminal proceeding. There appears to be no such proceeding.
Hale, a 28-year-old woman who reportedly identified as a transgender man, was fatally shot by police minutes after she began her rampage. But it seems Metro Nashville is claiming some kind of ill-defined, nebulous ongoing investigation.
The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson filed a motion saying it does not oppose the school and church intervening in the lawsuit.
“The Metropolitan Government believes these entities have important interests in whether the documents in MNPD’s investigative file are released to the public,” the motion states. “The Metropolitan Government supports their intervention and asks that the Court give them an opportunity to participate in the show cause hearing and consider their interests and arguments.”
One of the pleadings filed Wednesday in Myles’ court includes a declaration by a Metro Nashville official that the “investigation” could take up to 12 months to complete. The ongoing investigation doesn’t identify any specific individual as a potential criminal defendant.
“I think at some point, if they’re going to rely on a ‘pending criminal investigation,’ they have to identify, in some shape, form, or fashion, who,” Harris of the Firearms Association said. “Otherwise the Columbine massacre is still an ongoing investigation.”
Attorneys for the Covenant School parents argue the state’s Public Records Act “either does not apply or that an exception should prevent release of the writings.”
“The Parents intend to argue through their litigation against Metro that the writings are not public records as contemplated by the Tennessee Open Records Act, that the school safety exception is broad enough to encompass all of the writings and keep them from being released, that an implicit exception to the Open Records Act applies to the writings, and that the public policy behind the Open Records Act does not apply here, especially given the very real danger (and sincere fear of the Parents) of copycat attacks and the trauma and harm that public release of the documents will cause to the Parents, their children, and related family members for years to come.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs seeking the release of Hale’s writings argue the Public Records law is clear and is weighted on the side of public disclosure. It is the burden of the government to show cause as to why public records should not be released.
Read the parents’ motion to intervene:
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Covenant Presbyterian School” by Metro Nashville Police Department.
Release the Information. The community is better served knowing what went through this persons mind. That is how we recognize the causes, symptoms and motivations to understand and recognize how identify and prevent this from happening again.
Hiding the truth will never help anyone.