- FBI-released journals reveal transgender shooter's explicit racial and religious hatred.
- She spared a predominantly Black school out of stated affection for Black people.
- She targeted Covenant School because she hated white people and Christianity.
- The documents show premeditated targeting based on identity, complicating simplistic narratives.
- The release confirms long-held suspicions about politically motivated delays in transparency.
The FBI’s long-delayed release of the Covenant School shooter’s journals this week has ripped away a veil of political narrative to expose a brutal truth. Audrey Hale, the 28-year-old transgender killer who murdered three children and three staff members at the Nashville Christian elementary school on March 27, 2023, selected her target through a cold, handwritten calculus of racial and religious hatred. The documents, withheld for years amid court battles, reveal Hale methodically ruled out a predominantly Black school because she loved Black people, and instead chose a predominantly white Christian school because she hated white people and religion.
For more than a year, the public and media outlets fought for transparency, while the Biden administration and local law enforcement kept these writings sealed. Many suspected the delay was politically motivated, an effort to protect a narrative that frames white supremacy as the paramount domestic threat while avoiding a fraught discussion about violence stemming from within a protected identity group. The released pages confirm those suspicions, presenting a case study that complicates simplistic ideological scripts.
A twisted pros-and-cons list
The journals, some dating to 2021, show Hale initially identified I.T. Creswell Middle School, which she attended for fifth through eighth grades, as her first choice for an attack. But she created a list of disadvantages that ultimately spared that school. The first noted disadvantage was that it was a "[predominantly] black school (black people I love)." This phrase appears twice.
Hale elaborated that attacking Creswell would leave the "Black community in despair [and] suffering (I don’t want to cause that) = don’t want to harm them = dread." She further worried that "Black friends [and] black community will hate me." Perhaps most chillingly, she expressed concern that killing Black students would be "likely to influence rasist [sic] white shooters in future."
Targeting whiteness and Christianity
In contrast, Hale’s list of advantages for attacking her former school, the Covenant School, was strong. A key advantage was that it was a "predominantly white school" because "white people I hate!" she wrote. The next advantage sealed the decision: "Christian school (hate religion)," Hale noted, underlining the phrase about hating religion for emphasis. Familiarity with the campus layout was also listed, but the motive was already crystal clear.
Hale’s parents later told police their child developed an affinity for Black culture while playing basketball on a predominantly Black team at Creswell. Her mother explained in a recorded interview that Hale "felt accepted" by her teammates. This personal connection seemingly inoculated the Black community from her violence, while white Christians became the object of her focused rage.
The writings dismantle the notion of a random or mentally ill act of inexplicable violence. They show deliberate, premeditated targeting based on identity. Hale evaluated two schools using race and religion as primary criteria. One was spared out of a twisted form of love and fear of community reprisal. The other was condemned out of explicit hatred.
This presents an uncomfortable reality for institutions and media platforms heavily invested in certain narratives about hate. If the roles were reversed—if a conservative Christian shooter had left writings stating they spared a school because they "loved white people" but targeted another because they "hated transgender people"—the story would dominate headlines for weeks. The transgender identity of the perpetrator would be central to the analysis. Yet in this case, that same identity has often been downplayed or omitted, the racial and religious animus softened.
The financial entries included in the release add another layer, indicating Hale may have used federal student aid money to fund the attack. Hale’s parents reportedly told investigators their child used federal Pell Grant money to purchase firearms. A handwritten page labeled "Account Savings Record" references "FAFSA [sic] grant checks" from Nossi College of Art and Design alongside notes on purchasing weapons.
This tragedy forces a conversation we are often told not to have: that hatred and the capacity for mass violence are not the exclusive province of any one demographic or ideology. The FBI’s own documents now prove that the Covenant School was not attacked at random. It was attacked for what it represented to Audrey Hale: whiteness and Christianity. Acknowledging this fact is not an endorsement of any broader prejudice; it is a necessary step toward honest diagnosis and prevention. When we ignore the specific motives written in a killer’s own hand to preserve a political narrative, we fail the victims and empower the very divisions that lead to despair. True safety begins with truth, no matter how inconvenient.
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