Nashville Shooter’s Parents Want To Release the “Manifesto” To Covenant School Families

Image Credit: MNPD / Facebook

The Tennessee Conservative [By Adelia Kirchner] –

The parents of the Covenant School shooter have announced they would like to release the shooter’s written documents or “manifesto” to the Covenant School’s students. 

Release of the shooter’s “manifesto” has now been tied up in court since the beginning of May. 

On Thursday, Ronald and Norma Hale’s attorney David Raybin told the court that the shooter’s family wants to give all rights and ownership of the shooter’s writings to the children of the school.

Raybin argues that the writings are property of the shooter’s parents and that they should be allowed to decide what happens to the documents. This would fall under intestacy laws which establish an order of priority for who inherits a deceased person’s belongings. 

Should the judge agree to that premise, the victims’ families may get to decide what happens to the writings even if that means they are never made public. 

According to The Tennessee Star, however, this would trample state law which generally considers material like a shooter’s “manifesto” to be a record of public interest. Especially since the writings have been and are currently in police custody.

Executive director for The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, Deborah Fisher, sees the whole ordeal as an issue of transparency. 

“I would read that as another legal maneuver to try to prevent the writings, which are evidence collected in a police case from becoming public,” she said. “When they collect evidence in a case whether it’s surveillance video from a convenience store or documents that might support a case, eventually, that evidence will become public.”

The Tennessee Firearms Association’s John Harris shared a similar sentiment saying, “If the government is in possession, then it’s publicly inspectable.”

Following Thursday’s court hearing, NewsChannel5 did speak to a Covenant School parent who wants the shooter’s writings kept private. 

“Our attorneys and our families are gonna take some time to process all of what this means,” said the father of three Covenant students, “but you should know that the parents and the families have asked our attorneys to leave no stone unturned as we pursue our objective to keep all of these writings out of the public domain, and anything that may inspire future attacks on other communities.”

The Covenant school and church, along with the families of Covenant students, have made it clear that they do not want the writings released to the public because they don’t want anything like what happened in their community, to happen elsewhere.

However, many Tennesseans continue to demand public access to the shooter’s documents because they want to know the motive behind the attack that took the lives of three young children and three adults in March of this year. 

Several state lawmakers also believe that in order to properly legislate with the goal of preventing school shootings like the one at Covenant, they should be given access to at least a redacted version of the writings.

About the Author: Adelia Kirchner is a Tennessee resident and reporter for the Tennessee Conservative. Currently the host of Subtle Rampage Podcast, she has also worked for the South Dakota State Legislature and interned for Senator Bill Hagerty’s Office in Nashville, Tennessee. You can reach Adelia at adelia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.