A school in Nashville, Tennessee, which was the target of a mass shooting that left six people dead has intervened in a lawsuit lodged against the city seeking the release of a manifesto penned by the assailant before the attack.
Court records show The Covenant School, a private Christian institution, filed an expedited motion to intervene on Monday. The motion was granted the following day, allowing the judge to hear arguments on whether the full, unredacted document should be made public. The hearing will take place on Thursday.
A copy of a similar motion, obtained by local news network WSMV, was filed by the adjoining Covenant Presbyterian Church on Friday. The manifesto may include information owned by the school, such as schematics of the buildings and confidential information about its employees, the church argues.
"Covenant Church is so situated that the disposition of this action may impair or impede its ability to protect its interest and the privacy of its employees," the motion reads.
On March 27, 28-year-old Audrey Hale—a former student of the school identified by police as transgender—broke into the school, to the southwest of Nashville, killing three nine-year-old pupils and three members of staff.
Officers attended the school following reports of shots being fired and encountered the assailant on the second floor of the school building, where they fatally shot Hale, who had arrived with three guns including two assault weapons.
Police have yet to identify a motive for the shooting, and both federal investigators and members of the public have hoped the writings Hale left behind might shed light on why the shooting took place.
On Friday, the Nashville Metro Government's law department told Fox 17 News it had handed the court an unredacted version of Hale's writings. Newsweek reached out to Wallace Dietz, director of Nashville Metro Government Department of Law, via email for comment on Wednesday.
The motion brought by the Christian school relates to two separate cases in the Nashville Chancery Court seeking the release of the manifesto. After the lawsuits were filed, the Metro Nashville Police Department stated on May 3 it had been advised by counsel to temporarily hold the release of the records until the court had made a ruling.
On May 1, James Hammond, former sheriff for Hamilton County, and the Tennessee Firearms Association, an organization promoting the right to keep and bear arms, filed a petition for access to the records.
It said the plaintiffs had made three requests for access to the records, but had been denied by the Metro Nashville Police Department. It argued that the Tennessee Public Records Act grants citizens of the state the right to inspect government documents.
The lawsuit said the police force denied the requests as they pertained to an open case, but argued it "failed to identify any underlying criminal proceeding, or even a potential defendant, such that the requested materials would be a 'case.'"
Prior to this, on April 28, Clata Renee Brewer, owner of Stillwatch private investigators, filed a separate petition which contended the same grounds.
"Since The Covenant School incident, law enforcement officials have made numerous comments to both local and national media concerning some or all of the records Plaintiff has requested," the petition said, "and these comments are inconsistent with there being any criminal prosecution related to the incident."
Newsweek approached the attorneys for Brewer, Hammond, and the TFA via email for comment on Wednesday.
According to Nashville police chief John Drake, maps of the school and what he described as a "manifesto" were recovered from Hale's residence following the shooting.
In an update, the force said analysis of the writings showed "planning over a period of months to commit mass murder," but did not provide any details of a possible motive. It added that the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit was inspecting the documents.
On April 28, The Covenant School released a statement: "We are overwhelmed by the care this community has lavished on us, and the love we have felt from every corner of the nation. There are no words in the English language to express our gratitude to everyone adequately."
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