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Final Police Report Reveals Transgender Covenant School Shooter Planned Attack for Years


Audrey Hale, whose mass shooting at the Christian campus in Tennessee resulted in six fatalities in March 2023, was reportedly driven by a desire for ‘notoriety,’ according to police.

The transgender individual responsible for the 2023 mass shooting at a Nashville Christian school was identified as a former student, and authorities have determined that the motivation behind the act was a pursuit of notoriety, as detailed in a final police report. The tragic incident resulted in the deaths of three children and three adults before police intervened and fatally shot the perpetrator.

Nashville Police reported that Audrey Hale, aged 28, left behind not only notebooks and art books but also documents outlining her plans to attack the Covenant School. According to the report, Hale drew some inspiration from the infamous Columbine mass shooting that occurred in 1999.

The police department referenced a much-anticipated manifesto but clarified that “in this case, a manifesto didn’t exist.”

“Hale did not leave behind any document explaining her motives, the reasons for specifically targeting The Covenant, or what she hoped to achieve with the attack,” the report elaborated.

“Not a single document, notebook, or digital device provides answers to those questions. The explanations are dispersed throughout the collected materials.”

According to the report, Hale opened fire at the Covenant School “to gain notoriety” and also “because of her personal connection to the school from her past, feeling she needed to die in a place that brought her happiness.”

On March 27, 2023, Hale entered the school armed with a rifle and killed six individuals before being shot and killed by police inside the building. The victims included Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all aged 9, along with adults Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61.

“Notoriety was the motive,” stated the report summary. “It has been established that Hale, like many other mass shooters, studied materials from the Columbine High School incident before executing her plans.”

The authorities categorized Hale as female in the report while acknowledging that she “identified as a male and preferred the pronouns he/him.” However, the report also noted that “under Tennessee law, an individual’s gender identity must align with their biological sex or the details recorded on their birth certificate.”

According to the report, Hale had explored potential targets for her attack, which included busy roadways and shopping centers. By December 2018, she had also contemplated an assault on another middle school where she had previously attended.

Nonetheless, Hale expressed concerns about being perceived as racist due to the majority of that school’s students being black; despite this, police remarked that she “had no issues with the prospect of harming anyone, regardless of demographic factors.”

Hale’s parents and a therapist tried to assist her, but she never disclosed her intentions to carry out a mass shooting, the report indicated. Additionally, investigators concluded that she was mentally stable.

According to her notebooks, “Hale recorded that she concealed information from her providers to avoid being intervened,” authorities shared.

Her struggles with career goals and various relationships “exacerbated her depression, and although this depression led her to feel highly suicidal, it does not account for the attack,” the report revealed.

“As Hale expressed multiple times, if her intention was suicide, she would have simply taken her own life,” the report stated. “Throughout her writings and videos, Hale consistently remarked that her death needed to be significant and remembered.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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