The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Metropolitan Nashville Police Department have refused to release the manifesto and related documents of the Covenant School killer, citing spurious reasons for their denials.
But is a shadowy Department of Justice unit billing itself as “America’s peacemaker” behind the information freeze? Some say the disclosure dance has all the markings of the Community Relations Service.
Star News Digital Media Inc., parent company of The Tennessee Star, is suing the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County and the FBI seeking the release of Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale’s manifesto.
The law enforcement agencies have denied open records requests from The Star, as well as requests from the Tennessee Firearms Association, the National Police Association and others.
Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD), like the FBI, has cited presumed exemptions in open records laws in their denials, insisting that disclosing the killer’s manifesto and related documents could interfere with an ongoing or underlying criminal proceeding.
But there appears to be no such case. Hale, a 28-year-old woman who reportedly identified as a transgender male, was fatally shot by police minutes after she stormed into Nashville’s Covenant Presbyterian School and shot dead three 9-year-olds and three adult staff members.
The shootings occurred on the morning of March 27, more than a month and a half ago.
MNPD late last month said it was beginning the review process for releasing the records.
“The investigation has progressed to the point where the Covenant shooter’s writings are now being reviewed for public release,” the Metro Nashville Police Department told The Tennessee Star in a statement. “This process is currently underway.”
Shorthand for slow walk. A department spokeswoman would not say when the information would be released.
It didn’t matter. A few days later, MNPD backtracked and said it would not release Hale’s writings because of pending litigation filed by organizations seeking the documents. An attorney for one of the litigants called the police department’s move the “ultimate Catch-22.”
Some suggest political games are afoot.
The Conservative Treehouse blogsite suspects the involvement of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s murky Community Relations Service.
“This little-known, quasi legislatively authorized, Eric Holder weaponized, silo inside the justice system operates to control information that would be deemed ‘adverse to the peace and tranquility interests of the nation.’ In non-pretending terms, the DOJ-CRS controls any information in the criminal justice system that doesn’t fit the agenda of the radical communists and left-wing activists within it,” CTH reports.
The CRS was involved in the George Zimmerman case, with evidence to suggest the shadowy unit helped organize rallies over the self-defense shooting of black teen Trayvon Martin. The CRS was involved in Ferguson, the Baltimore-Six case, and others.
Created by Title X of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the CRS was ostensibly designed to help state and local governments, private and public organizations, educational institutions, and community groups resolve racial issues.
As “‘America’s Peacekeeper’ for communities in conflict,” CRC is charged with “mediating disputes and enhancing community capacity to independently prevent and resolve future conflicts.”
But the service’s background status gives it the ability to “control the information that is at the center of their topic, charge or investigation,” critics say.
“The CRS is an omnipotent smaller agency, with incredible power within the Dept of Justice, that has full control over anything they identify as needed to retain the ‘domestic tranquility,’ including instructions to federal and state judges,” Conservative Treehouse reports.
Almost no one knows about the CRS, and no one is permitted to talk about their true mission. What the FISA court is to the star chamber of the judicial branch, the CRS is to the star chamber of the executive branch and domestic DOJ operations. The CRS can remove investigators, lawyers and even judges from cases, and the CRS can appoint investigators, lawyers and judges to cases of their interest by authority of their power. They can also control any evidence in any case, in any jurisdiction.
CRS’ desire for secrecy is well-known, and acknowledged by its agents.
“A win for CRS is you never heard we were there.”said CRS Director Paul Monteiro, who spoke to the Divided Community Project (DCP) late last year at Ohio State University.
In 2009, with the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA), CRS’ jurisdiction expanded to the prevention of and response to violent hate crimes committed based on actual or perceived race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or disability, Frank Lazarus, Ohio State News wrote.
In an administration laser-focused on woke indoctrination and identity politics-driven “social justice,” the Community Relations Service is a perfect fit in the Hale case.
The delay in the release of the Hale manifesto has led to speculation, including theories that President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is playing politics with the investigation — and the records attached to it. As someone who identified as transgender, Hale doesn’t fit the left’s usual narrative of a school shooter, critics say. LGBTQ+ groups early on warned the release of the manifesto could lead to serious consequences.
While the FBI has quickly turned over mass murderer manifestos in myriad other cases, it refuses to release Hale’s writings.
We know some powerful people don’t want the documents made public.
“It’s really not even a manifesto. Its diaries of a mentally ill person. Her mental illness is not something that should be used for entertainment and I don’t understand these claims that law enforcement is hiding something,” Metro Nashville Councilwoman Courtney Johnston told Fox 17 News last month.
“I just think from what I have been told it is like a blueprint for heinous things,” she added.
If Johnston is correct, that’s all the more reason why the release of the writings is so critical to the public and to policymakers committed to keeping communities safe from such violence.
“Initially, the Nashville police said they were not going to release the manifesto. Then the Nashville police said the FBI was controlling the manifesto. Then the Nashville police reversed provenance last week and said they were going to release the manifesto. Now they change position again,” the Conservative Treehouse piece notes.
“This bizarre and odd conflagration of information, and who controls it, and what is going to happen with it, is exactly what it looks like when the CRS is involved.”
The CTH reporter notes Tennessee/DC sources have said the “most likely reason we are not going to see the release of a reported (300-page) very detailed manifesto about the ‘dangers of Christianity and how to confront it‘, is because Audrey Hale didn’t write it. Rather, the transgender mass murderer followed the detailed instructions within it.”
Interestingly, a spokesperson for the Community Relations Service did not return The Tennessee Star’s request for comment. Neither did State Senator Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga), chairman of the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee, nor House Republican Caucus Chairman Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby). Gardenhire filed a public records request with Metro Nashville Police seeking the Hale journals. Faison made a similar demand of MNPD and of the FBI on Twitter, asserting that people want the Legislature to “do something” in response to the school shooting perpetrated by Audrey Hale.
“Audrey Hale murdered 6 Christians, and many Tennesseans are demanding that their state legislature ‘do something.’ We cannot possibly address this horrific situation until we know what was in her manifesto,” Faison wrote.
Audrey Hale murdered 6 Christians, and many Tennesseans are demanding that their state legislature “do something."
We cannot possibly address this horrific situation until we know what was in her manifesto.
I am calling on the Metropolitan Nashville Police Deparment & the FBI…
— Jeremy Faison (@JeremyFaison4TN) April 24, 2023
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Audrey Elizabeth Hale” by Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. Background Photo “U.S. Department of Justice” by Coolcaesar. CC BY-SA 3.0.
