Michael Patrick Leahy, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Tennessee Star, dissected a critical revelation in the case of The Covenant School shooter, 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who took six lives last year at the Nashville school.
Hale, who identified as transgender, shot and killed three adults and three students at The Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, 2023.
One day after the shooting, Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake confirmed during a press conference that Hale, at the time of the shooting, was “under doctor’s care for an emotional disorder,” adding that “law enforcement knew nothing about the treatment she was receiving.”
Drake, at the time, also noted that Hale’s emotional disorder was so bad that her parents felt that she should not have access to any weapons.
“Had it been reported that she was suicidal or that she was going to kill someone and had that been made known to us, then we would have tried to get [her] weapons,” Drake said at the time.
This week, law enforcement and security expert Brink Fidler told Brian Wilson, host of The Drive on SuperTalk 99.7, that there is “potentially more to the story” when it comes to the case, specifically regarding what Fidler described as a “massive failure of the mental health system” of “epic proportions” as there was a “failure to report all sorts of things.”
“I know a lot of people think this case is closed [because the] shooter is dead,” Fidler said. “That’s not exactly true because they’re having to look into every one of those failures and see, do they rise to the level of criminal negligence?”
Fidler also noted how Hale had visited The Covenant School on “several occasions” prior to the March 27 attack.
On Friday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, host Leahy – who, along with Star News Digital Media, the parent company of The Star, is a plaintiff in the multi-party lawsuit seeking to compel the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) to release the shooter’s manifesto – pointed out how MNPD has not released the manifesto due to an “ongoing investigation” but has never come forward with who or what the supposed investigation is focusing on.
Leahy said Fidler’s revelation that there was a failure to report information in regards to Hale’s mental health may be a clue to what MNPD’s investigation is focusing on, noting how if somebody was aware that Hale had made a threat to carry out the shooting, it would be a crime for that person not to have reported it to authorities.
“Someone, Mr. Fidler suggests, failed to report a mental health issue, a threat made by Audrey Elizabeth Hale to authorities. The second element is that on several occasions immediately prior to this act, Audrey Elizabeth Hale visited the school. That’s the combination. What’s the timeline there? Was the threat known and not reported? And if it had been reported, would it have stopped her from visiting the school because she was scoping it out for her attack? That’s the problem right there,” Leahy explained.
Leahy went on to question whether the alleged person of interest with knowledge of Hale’s mental health is a mental health professional.
“There’s a law about certain threats. If a patient makes a threat, that threat must be reported,” Leahy said.
Leahy added that Fidler’s revelation is ultimately a “big clue” into MNPD’s hidden work regarding Hale’s case.
“There’s something there, so we’re going to investigate what the requirements are for a mental health professional to report a threat. Somewhere, that suggests, the Metro Nashville Police Department has done an investigation of a mental health professional who was treating Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who was aware of a threat she made and failed to report that to appropriate authorities. That is a big clue, folks, and we’re going to be following up on that,” Leahy said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
