Transgender Suspect Planned Tennessee School Shooting for Years

Tennessee Nashville Police recently released their final report on the massacre that took place at a church school in the city in 2023, stating that the transgender gunman involved was an alumna of the school, and the motive behind the killings was the pursuit of fame.

On March 27, 2023, Audrey Hale entered Covenant School with a rifle and shot six people, including three 9-year-old children, before being fatally shot by police inside the building.

Authorities revealed that the 28-year-old Hale left behind notebooks, art books, and documents related to her planning of the attack on Covenant School. The report indicated that Hale, a female, was partially inspired by the 1999 massacre at a high school in Columbine, Colorado.

According to the report, Hale identified as female but was a transgender person who identified as male. The report further added that “under Tennessee law, a person’s gender identity must match their physical gender or the information on their birth certificate.”

The report detailed that Hale had also researched other shooting locations, including busy roads and shopping centers. As early as December 2018, she had been planning an attack on another school she had attended.

Despite being indiscriminate in her killings, Hale expressed concern about being labeled as racist because most students at the school were Black, according to police.

Authorities stated that “Hale never left any documents explaining why she carried out the attack, why she specifically targeted the church school, and what she hoped to achieve from it.”

They also mentioned that “not a single document, notebook computer, or digital device contained answers to these questions, with the answers scattered across all collected data.”

The report concluded that Hale attacked Covenant School both “because she sought fame” and “because of her earlier connection with the school, where she felt she needed to die in a place that would make her happy.”

Her parents and a therapist had tried to help her, but she did not disclose her plans for a large-scale shooting. Investigators also found her to be in sound mind.

The report highlighted that Hale’s career aspirations and complex interpersonal relationships exacerbated her depression, stating that “although this depression gave her strong suicidal tendencies, it does not explain the motive for the attack.”

As noted in the report, “as Hale wrote on multiple occasions, if suicide was her goal, she would have died directly. She frequently mentioned in all her writings and videos that her death needed to be valued and remembered.”