On the third anniversary of the deadly shooting at the Covenant School, The Tennessee Star’s lead reporter, Tom Pappert, reflected on the tragedy, the ongoing legal battles to obtain the shooter’s writings, and the overall lack of transparency from Metro Nashville regarding the case.
The March 27, 2023, attack left six people dead after 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who identified as transgender, entered the private Christian school and carried out the shooting before being killed by police.
The victims included three nine-year-old children and three staff members.
Speaking during Friday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Pappert described the past three years as “an interesting” period shaped by both additional shootings carried out by individuals who identify as transgender and dragged-out legal battles over public access to records.
“When you think about the crimes that have followed, we’ve seen multiple more mass shooters, school shooters that identified as transgender,” Pappert said.
He pointed to developments in federal litigation that have led to the release of some documents connected to the Covenant case, particularly through action involving the FBI.
“Of course, the FBI, which was fighting the parallel lawsuit filed by you and The Tennessee Star, they essentially settled it and they are now releasing the documents written by the killer,” he noted.
He suggested that increased access to information should reassure the public.
“Fortunately, now under the Trump administration, there seems to have been a significant shift,” Pappert said.
“I think that the public should be a little bit reassured three years later that now we’re getting some of this information out and they have an ally in the federal government who wants the public to be informed rather than misinformed or ignorant, as we’ve seen in Metro Nashville,” he added.
However, Pappert criticized local institutions, specifically the Davidson County Chancery Court system and Metro Nashville leadership, accusing officials of prioritizing institutional interests over transparency.
“Now, when it comes to the behavior of Metro Nashville and the Tennessee Chancery court system…I think we’ve learned that these groups tend to have a bias toward big institutions and the status quo, and they place that well above the health and well-being of young children,” he said.
The legal battle over the shooter’s writings and related investigative materials remains unresolved at the state level. Despite a recent appellate ruling favoring their release, documents have yet to be fully disclosed, and further appeals to the Tennessee Supreme Court are expected.
Pappert warned that delays could stretch on for years if left solely to state courts.
“I think that, again, if this were left to merely the state level courts, we would be at this probably until 2028, unfortunately…waiting on Metro Nashville investigative files,” he suggested.
He added that the situation reflects poorly not just on Metro Nashville but on the state of Tennessee as a whole.
“This makes Tennessee look bad, and I hate to say that because usually Tennessee looks like the best out of all 50 states. But this makes it look very unfortunately backward compared to the federal government,” he said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
