The Covenant school shooter’s manifesto has finally been released by the Tennessee Star — but it didn’t happen without a fight.
Tennessee Star CEO Michael Patrick Leahy told Jill Savage and Matthew Peterson, “We’re just a journalistic organization that the public has a right to access, and at every level, local government has blocked those desires, as has the FBI.” of “Blaze News Tonight.”
“In fact, the Metro National Police Department has claimed for over a year that the investigation is ongoing. They claimed in court in March that it would expire by the end of June. Well, here we are, in early September, they’re still claiming it,” he explains.
“It’s basically a stalling tactic because they don’t want this information out,” he adds.
In 2023, Leahy was taken to court on June 17 by the presiding judge in the state case to explain “why he should not be charged with contempt of court against me”.
“She claimed that maybe there was a court order that she had issued that I had violated. There was no such order,” Leahy explains. “It was Kafka-esque, here in America.”
Leahy did not give up, as he believed it was incredibly important for Americans to understand the motive behind shootings like this, and Savage also noted that “the shooter’s writings shed light on his poor mental health leading up to the shooting.”
“This is a matter of public interest,” he says. “What is behind these mass killings by deeply disturbed people and what is the public policy solution? I think that’s a very important part of the discussion.”
“We believe we have served the public interest by showing Audrey Hale’s very confused mental state and the complete failure of the mental health system to treat her for her difficulties,” he continued, noting that Hale was under psychiatric care. 22 years of care at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“She’s also been on very, very strong SSRI medications since 2019. That’s going to affect a person, and I think really, the whole public discussion about this is misguided. They try to make it about gun control.
The issue is not the weapon the person uses, but why the person carries the weapon in the first place.
“The real issue here is how our kids are suffering from mental illness and they’re not being treated properly and how they’re being overmedicated with psychiatric drugs,” Leahy says.
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