More information is slowly trickling out from the Nashville police about the school shooting perpetrated by Audrey Elizabeth Hale. They are still holding a lot of additional material close to the vest for some reason, but the local Police Chief offered a few more details during a press briefing yesterday. One key element was the planning that went into the attack and how Hale settled on the Covenant School. Shortly after the shooting, it was speculated that Hale had some sort of grudge against the school since she was formerly a student there. But it turns out that she had a different school in mind originally. She changed her mind because there was too much security at the first school and Covenant would make an easier target. (Townhall)

Nashville Police Chief John Drake told reporters on Monday the shooter who attacked a private Christian elementary school, killing three young children and three adults, did not attack a different location because there was too much security.

Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, who identified as transgender, gained access to the church by shooting out the glass doors. Nashville police officers were able to arrive and kill Hale within 14 minutes of the first call. Drake said Hale did a threat assessment of the location before deciding to attack the Covenant School…

Drake confirmed the school was specifically targeted by Hale. Police also found a manifesto written by Hale.

Nashville Shooter did a threat assessment of another school but decided against an attack due to too much security. Now read that again! pic.twitter.com/2b7Hlem1q4

— Rob O'Donnell (@odonnell_r) March 28, 2023

Understanding how these events played out is important because the information may prove useful as we attempt to make all schools less susceptible to these types of attacks. The first example of this type of useful data was revealed by the video of Hale’s entrance into Covenant. She was able to easily shoot out the glass doors and quickly enter the building. This should be a reminder to other schools around the country to install more secure doors and windows.

But the bigger news, as noted above, is that the school had no armed resource officers on the premises. Like all cowards, Hale didn’t want to face anyone else with a gun until she was ready for her big moment of committing “suicide by cop.” (Which seems to clearly have been her plan from the beginning.) Perhaps this tragedy will silence some of the anti-cop, anti-gun activists who still claim that having police officers in schools is “the real problem.”

We might also learn something more about the FBI’s criminal background check database. Tennessee is one of the 47 states that submit reports of mental health treatment to the database. (New Hampshire, Montana and Wyoming do not.) Hale’s parents said that she had been in treatment for mental health issues, possibly beyond just gender dysphoria. Why didn’t that show up as a red flag when she filled out her background check?

There may be plenty of other information to take away from this monstrous event, but we don’t know for sure yet because the police are still refusing to release Hale’s manifesto. That’s frustrating for the public and doesn’t appear to make much sense. Unless the police suspect that other people may have been involved in the planning of the attack or they plan on pressing charges against the parents (unlikely), it’s difficult to see how releasing the document would compromise an ongoing investigation. We know that trans activist groups definitely don’t want the manifesto released for political reasons, but that really shouldn’t be a factor here.

In the end, I suppose we’ll just have to be patient. Nothing will bring back the victims at this point and Hale won’t be shooting anyone else. But for the reasons I cited above, the full details really do need to be released at some point.