The National Police Association announced today that it has filed an amended and supplemental complaint against the governments of Nashville and Davidson County for their new refusal to act on a request for records, “specifically all writings by Audrey Hale, to include a manifesto, recovered by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department relating to the March 27 mass shooting at The Covenant School.”
It seems straightforward to me. If the Nashville shooter’s manifesto or other materials explaining motive include calls to violence or instructions on how to commit it, the police have good reason to release only a heavily redacted version. Last month, unnamed sources told the New York Post that the shooter’s manifesto was “blueprint on total destruction.”
But the current decision to not describe the shooter’s manifesto or motive in any way indicates that this is meant to protect a particular narrative. As Jonathan Turley observes, the shooter is dead and had no accomplices, meaning there is no ongoing investigation that the release of the materials could impede.