Amid calls for suppression and censorship of Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale’s manifesto, a new report indicates the FBI is involved in reviewing the document Hale left behind after being shot to death Monday in the aftermath of a shooting at a Christian school in Nashville that claimed six lives.
The FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit is working “in tandem with” Nashville police to develop “a very in-depth analysis of certain aspects of the shooter’s life,” Nashville City Council member Robert Swope said Wednesday, according to the New York Post.
“The manifesto is going to be released. It’s just a matter of when. There are some incredibly brilliant psychological minds and psychological analysts combing through her entire life,” he said.
VIDEO: Nashville police chief confirms Audrey Hale identifies as transgender, suggests her trans identify motivated the killings: “We have a manifesto … and a map of how all of this was going to play out.” pic.twitter.com/Mss0FPqnUn
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 27, 2023
Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee said the manifesto needs to be shared.
“Our trans youth are troubled. If they don’t get the help they need, they can grow up to have some serious issues, but I obviously don’t believe they’ll all grow up to be shooters like this,” Burchett told Fox News.
“We need to know what was going through this person’s head, and the manifesto should be made public,” he said.
Imagine that, the rainbow mafia doesn’t want the trans manifesto released! Too flippin bad! We don’t answer to the rainbow mafia in TN!! https://t.co/IjWpeDbcQd
— Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) March 28, 2023
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However, advocates for transgender individuals want the focus on banning guns, not whatever motives drove Hale to kill, according to Newsweek.
“It should not be published. The focus should be on how this was able to happen in the first place. There should not be such easy access to deadly weaponry,” Executive Director of Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere Jordan Budd said.
Charles Moran, the national president of Log Cabin Republicans, said there could be “serious consequences” if the document goes public.
“While it would certainly give insight into the motivations of this deeply troubled individual that could help shed light into root causes, we know from tragedies like this that additional glorification of the shooter could inspire others to take similar violent acts for attention,” Moran said.
Audrey Hale’s so-called “manifesto” needs to be released. It is likely to show that Hale was a domestic terrorist who targeted and murdered school children and adult employees on account of their Christian faith. If that is in fact the case, the public has a right to know.
— Robert P. George🇻🇦🇺🇸🪕 (@McCormickProf) March 29, 2023
In an editorial, the New York Post said the American public should be able to read Hale’s unedited words, writing that “demands to sit on Hale’s words amount to a coverup, pure and simple.”
“If Hale were a right-wing militia member, fundamentalist Christian or an ‘incel,’ her identity would be front and center of a million think-pieces blaming her whiteness, maleness or expressed beliefs for the massacre,” the editorial said.
“Yes, there are significant moral questions around publishing any document of this kind. But if the media are going to hold Buffalo mass-shooter Payton Gendron’s racist beliefs under a microscope, they must do the same for Hale’s,” it wrote, citing a document from the man who killed 10 people in a Buffalo-area grocery store last year.
“Media must give this manifesto — whatever it says — the same examination as any other. It’s one piece of trying to understand why these atrocities take place,” the Post wrote.
“Making an exception because some ideologues imagine terrible consequences would be absurd.”
