The fight to pull the manifesto of school shooter Audrey Hale from the grip of authorities brought danger to one journalist-businessman who has filed a lawsuit to learn what the killer wrote before the massacre at a Nashville Christian school in March that left three children and three adults dead.
Radio talk show host Michael Patrick Leahy, who has filed a lawsuit to release the manifesto, received an ugly threat July 9, according to Just the News.
Leahy is also CEO of The Star News Network and Star News Digital Media Inc.
“Michael Patrick Leahy … if it were not illegal to beat your ass up … I’d have done it months ago. I have called your show twice because you decided to pound home the transgender Audrey Hale while people who suffered were healing. You dirty potato eating Mick. If I see you on the street … I’m going to end your conservative slant eye a–,” an email to Leahy declared.
“I’m willing to go to prison to end you. You dirty drug addict eyed Irish fool. You either end your talk show or I’ll end your life in real time while you do it. You have no right to the manifesto of Audrey Hale and you just want content by obtaining it,” the email said.
“Send the authorities. You’d better if you still want to live, Leahy,” the email added.
Authorities have a suspect in connection with the threat. Michael Alonzo Rouse, 49, has been charged with aggravated stalking and has been released on $7,500 bond, Just the News reported.
Although the official ruling in The Covenant School shooting on March 27 has been that Hale acted alone, officials have refused to release the manifesto, citing the need to protect an ongoing investigation.
The Covenant Presbyterian Church, which operates the school, the school itself, and a group of parents also want the manifesto kept quiet.
Parent Erin Kinney, whose 9-year-old son, William, was killed in the shooting, wrote in a letter to the court that those seeking the manifesto do not care about the “wellbeing of their fellow humans” and “seek to rob the six murder victims of dignity in their deaths by demanding the release of sensitive details,” according to The Tennessee Star, an online newspaper that’s part of Leahy’s Star News Network.
“These petitioners have shown no respect or regard for my family or for the hundreds of surviving Covenant trauma victims, even going so far as to shamefully deny their victimhood before you, as they seek to publish and profit from the deranged, hateful, and exceedingly dangerous ramblings of an individual who renounced her humanity and gunned down children,” Kinney wrote.
Releasing the manifesto “could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,” the FBI has said, according to LifeSite News.
However, the Star News Digital Media lawsuit seeking the manifesto’s release argues otherwise.
“Hale is dead and no threat remains to the public related to the events of March 27,” the lawsuit states, according to LifeSite News.
“There is no criminal prosecution, investigation, or anything resembling an ‘enforcement proceeding.’ It has been long enough, and the public has an urgent right to know why this tragedy happened, how future events may be prevented, and what policies should be in place to address this and other similar tragedies. FBI has no right to retain a monopoly on this information,” the lawsuit states.
“The release of these records is critical to understanding the mind and actions of a mass murderer and can help form public policy to most effectively protect American citizens,” Leahy said, according to LifeSite News.
“We believe the public’s right to know is so important that we are willing to challenge the most powerful law enforcement agency in America.”
According to July 19 report in The Tennessee Star, Nashville police Lt. Brent Gibson has said some portions of the manifesto could be released with appropriate redactions. However, he said, “harmful and irreversible consequences could result from fully disclosing” the document.
“Ideally, the records related to the ongoing criminal investigation should remain confidential until the conclusion of the investigation or any resulting criminal case. However, MNPD believes that releasing a redacted version of certain of the shooter’s writings would not impede the investigation,” he said.
Those trying to get the document are wary of such a deal.
“If the definition of redactions means the redaction of just about everything, the records might as well have been destroyed,” John Harris III, executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, one of the plaintiffs seeking to have the document made public, told the Star.
“Are they saying they are going to redact the names of specific individuals or have a minimal amount of redactions so the documents received have relevant content? Or are they going to give you pieces of paper that look like you put them in an old copy machine with the lid left open?” Harris said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
