Nashville Judge I’Ashea Myles has decided that none of Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale’s writings should be made public, accepting the dubious argument that Hale’s victims have copyrights to the material—even though the victims haven’t registered with the federal copyright office.
“The materials created by Hale are exempted from disclosure based on the federal Copyright Act,” Myles said.
“Whether or not an original work of authorship has been registered with the federal copyright office is germane to the amount of recoverable damages in a copyright infringement action, but it has no bearing on whether or not this state law is preempted by federal copyright law,” she said.
The judge also ruled that disclosing Hale’s writings could inspire copycat killers, disregarding the testimony of an expert psychologist who said that there’s no evidence to support that copycat theory.
Myles is the same judge to trample on the First Amendment by threatening a newspaper that’s already published some of Hale’s writings. According to Myles’s Thursday ruling, the evidence held by law enforcement includes more than 100 gigabytes of data.
Holy cow look at all the data left by Nashville shooter Audrey Hale
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) July 5, 2024
Forget the "manifesto." I'd be willing to bet there's evidence here that she was in chatrooms with feds pic.twitter.com/Kcty6CtOVm
Police have said the writings that they collected as part of their investigation into the March 27, 2023, shooting at the Covenant School that killed three 9-year-old children and three adult staff members are public records. However, they have said they cannot be released until their investigation is concluded.
Despite law enforcement’s attempts to keep the manifesto secret, the first three pages the purported manifesto were leaked to conservative broadcaster Steven Crowder last November. The Nashville Police Department reportedly suspended seven detectives over the leak.
The portion of the manifesto that was leaked purportedly revealed Hale, who identified a transgender, had been planning the school shooting for years, and that she deliberately targeted “white privileged” “cr*****s” and “f****ts.”
“Can’t believe I’m doing this but I’m ready… I hope my victims aren’t,” Hale wrote. “My only fear is if anything goes wrong. I’ll do my best to prevent any of the sort. God let my wrath take over my anxiety. It might be 10 minutes tops. It might be 3-7. It’s gonna go quick. I hope I have a high death count. Ready to die.”
The more recent excerpts published by The Star reveal Hale’s transgender ideation.
“2007 was the birth of puberty blockers and a newfound discovery for treatment of non-conforming transgender children,” Hale reportedly wrote. “I’d kill to have those resources.”
It appears that the vast majority of Hale’s writings have yet to be released.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
