Nashville Parents Ask: Should a Mass Shooter’s Writings Be Made Public?

Barely two months after an armed assailant fatally shot three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville, the lack of information about motive has led to a bitter legal battle over whether handwritten diaries and writings were found during a search of the gunman’s home. and car should be released to the public.

Caught between the arguments over the constitutional right to access public records and a political dispute over gun control laws, the parents of about 100 families at the Covenant School have made it clear they want the material under lock and key, at least until the surviving classmates complete the school year.

“It’s such a burden for them to put themselves back in the middle of all of this when they’re just trying to heal,” Eric G. Osborne, an attorney for the families, said at a court hearing Monday. “Obviously they wouldn’t do this if they didn’t honestly believe that releasing these writings would have very negative consequences for them.”

Journalists, a gun rights group and others have sued to force the release of the writings. But much of the hearing was devoted to whether Tennessee law allowed parents, the school itself, and the on-campus companion church to have a legal say in the dispute, a question the judge said she would answer by the end. would answer on Wednesday.

“I believe it’s a good thing to get the information that needs to come out,” said the judge, Chancellor I’Ashea L. Myles of the Davidson County Chancery Court, acknowledging that the case represented “uncharted territory.” and asked for sensitivity as it went on.

Even if the court rules in favor of the parents, the thornier question remains how much to reveal about the shooter’s motivations and final thoughts. Officials have said they are very likely to edit some of the material if the court orders its release, as they weigh First Amendment protections and the need for a public statement against fears of inciting and assisting more violence. contribute to a seeping contagion of mass murder.

The writings may also help build a growing body of research that examines patterns among similar attacks and traces the spread of bigoted beliefs.

“One of the reasons we know as much as we know about mass shooters today — things we didn’t know in the past — is because of what perpetrators do and say,” said Adam Lankford, a University of Alabama professor who has studied mass shootings. But beyond listening to survivors, he added, “the best argument for not releasing it is simply saying, ‘We don’t want to give these perpetrators what they want.'”

After a deadly rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in 1999, the images and motivations of the two gunmen were plastered across cable news and front pages for weeks. Their sinister notoriety has echoed in several mass shootings in what is now known as the Columbine effectas isolated and troubled young people have used that murder as a road map to achieve disgrace through violence in their own communities.

The Nashville attacker “considered the actions of other mass murderers,” police said said in early Aprilbelieved at the time to note that a motive remained unknown.

In the decades since Columbine, news organizations, including The New York Times, have tightened a set of guidelines for reporting mass shootings: For the most part, avoid using the shooter’s name and image repeatedly and focus on the victims and survivors.

But releasing an attacker’s writings, and how to share them, is more complicated, and courts, news organizations, and law enforcement have struggled with it before.

Nearly 1,000 pages of documents related to the Columbine shooting were released in 2006 as a result of a Colorado Supreme Court order. The Hartford Courant won a five-year lawsuit to see documents from the gunman responsible for the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Social media has in some ways negated the need for a court to intervene given that several mass shooters have deliberately left a trail of hateful and malicious thoughts online, including in the attacks in Buffalo and El Paso, Texas. But it has also allowed writings and graphics to circulate easily, something experts say could increase the risk and outweigh the research and research benefits of publishing some of the writings.

“It’s millions of people, all commenting and then commenting on comments and speculating, and that’s where it gets really tough,” said James Meindl, a professor of applied behavior analysis at the University of Memphis who studies the behavior of mass shooters. and how news outlets can report on it responsibly.

The lack of a clear motive or significant social media posts by the Nashville shooter has already led to rampant speculation. After police officials said the shooter had been identified as transgender, right-wing activists stepped up their attacks on transgender people, claiming without any evidence a link between the shooting and the attacker’s gender identity, and speculating about a conspiracy to hide details of a murder of a Christian woman. school.

Pressure to crack down on the gun laws has also prompted Republican state lawmakers to push for the release of the writings, following a tumultuous period in which two black lawmakers were expelled — and later reinstated — for leading protests calling for to gun control on the House floor, but no action was taken against any measure related to access to firearms.

Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, called for a special session in August to consider what he described as public safety legislation, and released a draft bill that could allow judges to take guns from people considered a danger to self or others. Citing upcoming legislative work, Republicans have demanded the documents as a way to fully inform potential policy changes.

“If we hope to pass meaningful legislation that effectively deters these types of targeted attacks, we must have all the facts to make informed decisions,” more than 60 House Republicans wrote in a letter to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department this month.

A Republican senator, Todd Gardenhire, is also among those suing for the release of the documents, citing “research” in “writing new laws related to school safety.”

Some Democrats and gun control advocates fear that Republicans will focus on the specific content of the writings as a way to avoid addressing what they see as the larger issue of gun access.

Multiple news outlets, including The Tennessean, have argued that the documents should be released under state public records laws and have warned of breaches of First Amendment protections.

The Tennessee Firearms Association and former Tennessee sheriff James Hammond are among the outside law enforcement and conservative groups that also called a violation of the state’s public records law in suing for the release of the documents, echoing the argument that it is important to know more about the motive for the special legislative session.

On Monday, their lawyers argued that the Covenant School, as a private school, could not claim school safety waivers under the public records law. They also questioned whether the group of parents had legal authority to intervene in the case, or whether they were entitled to the protection afforded to victims of crime.

Most of the parents have yet to publicly identify themselves as part of the lawsuits, and their lawyers indicated that several parents wished to remain anonymous if the case moved forward.

Nashville law enforcement officials have argued that releasing the writings prematurely would harm an ongoing investigation; as of now, they believe that the shooter, killed by police at the school, acted alone. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department has not objected to the release of a redacted compilation of the shooter’s writings in a separate lawsuit, though Davidson County Chancellor Myles will review what a city attorney described as “voluminous” evidence. .

Lieutenant Brent Gibson, the officer overseeing the investigation, estimated in a court case that it would take a year for the police to complete its work, warning that “releasing one of the puzzle pieces too soon could jeopardize the putting together of this complicated puzzle could jeopardize. He added that the agency had to subpoena a lot of data, such as message records and internet search history, and complete its interviews.

Chancellor Myles will continue to review the documents and evidence in police possession, as well as past Tennessee cases, before making her decision on whether the parents have the legal right to intervene.

“My goal is to ensure that whatever needs to get out can get out in a way that protects everyone involved, but also allows open access,” she said.