Hearing to determine if Covenant School shooting records are public begins

Whether documents related to the mass shooting at The Covenant School will be made public hinges on the outcome of a hearing beginning Tuesday morning.

Lawyers for Metro Nashville, The Covenant School and Covenant Presbyterian Church, parents of Covenant students and several records requesters including The Tennessean will argue before Chancellor I'Ashea Myles in a high-profile hearing over the records and Tennessee's public records law.

The hearing begins at 10 a.m. and is expected to last until Wednesday. It is not yet known when Myles will issue a ruling.

Not long after a former student entered The Covenant School and killed six people, including three children, on March 27, 2023, some people began calling for the release of records obtained in authorities' investigation of the shooting, with particular attention paid to a journal found in the shooter's car.

After many records requests were denied, several individuals and groups sued the city under the Tennessee Public Records Act seeking a court order that the records be handed over. Those requesters include a private citizen, a former Hamilton County sheriff, the Tennessee Firearms Association, the Tennessee Star's editor-in-chief and parent company, Sen. Todd Gardenhire and The Tennessean.

Those cases were consolidated, and the city has continued to withhold the records throughout the case, citing an open investigation by the Metro Nashville Police Department. An MNPD lieutenant estimated the investigation will last to early July in a court affidavit filed on March 1.

The Covenant School, Covenant Presbyterian Church and a group of parents of Covenant students petitioned the court to intervene in the case and block the release of the records. The groups cited several reasons for doing so, including school security and avoiding retraumatizing survivors of the shooting. Myles granted the groups' intervention, a decision which was upheld at the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The victims of the shooting were head of school Katherine Koonce, 59; custodian Mike Hill, 61; substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; and 9-year-old third-graders Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, the Covenant Presbyterian Church pastor’s daughter.

In November, a right-wing media personality leaked three pages of the shooter's journal. The leak sparked an investigation by MNPD that resulted in 10 officers being placed on administrative leave. All the officers were reinstated and reassigned to different positions. The release also drew harsh outcry from Covenant parents who said it caused victims to yet again "deal with this terror."

In seeking the records, The Tennessean has cited an interest in bringing to light "additional facts regarding this incident, societal and mental health issues, and issues regarding firearms more broadly, which have not yet been revealed through other means," according to the newspaper's complaint.

The records requested by The Tennessean are the documents in the shooter's possession prior to death, including those in the shooter's car and home; all police reports of the shooter in the Metro Nashville Police Department's possession; all calls for service to The Covenant School and the shooter's home from the past five years; and incident reports from MNPD's responses to the shooter's home on March 27.

The Tennessean has no plans to publish the writings verbatim and has sought to center coverage on public policy, the victims and the community.

Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at emealins@gannett.com or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EvanMealins.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Covenant School shooting documents: Hearing on release begins