March 27, 2023 • 40 mins
Robert, Gare, and James discuss the covenant school shooting, what we know about the shooter, and how the shooting has been covered in right wing and centrist media.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, everyone, this is It Could Happen here, a podcast
about things falling apart sometimes about putting things back together.
This is one of the former episodes, because we are
recording this in the immediate wake, within a couple of
hours of America's the United States of America's most recent
mass shooting in Tennessee at a Christian school called Covenant.
(00:29):
You know, obviously there are way too many mass shootings
in the United States for us to cover each one.
We are talking about this now in a timely manner
because there's a bunch of very specific disinformation coming out
about it, and particularly disinformation that is part of the
broader targeting by the right wing of transgender people. So
(00:50):
I'm going to for the first part of this, I'm
going to turn things over to Garrison, who has been
doing specific research on the shooter and what we can
actually verify at this moment about their identity. Upfront, I'll
say that the police have identified this person as Audrey
Hale twenty eight of Nashville NBC News notes quote who
(01:11):
said she identifies as transgender. Again, this is not quite right.
We'll talk about it, but the right wing is obviously
running with the idea that this is a transgender shooter
and part of a trans a series. They will argue
of transgender attacks on Christians. We're going to talk about
the right wing sort of analysis of this later, but
(01:31):
first I'm going to again push to Garrison, who will
talk about what we actually can verify about this person
and about this shooting at this point. Yeah, just as
a note here, throughout this episode, there will be some
what is probably miss gendering because we're going to be
quoting from a lot of other people's statements, and also
there will be mentions of like a few slurs against
(01:52):
trans people just because we are quoting from a whole
bunch of stuff and some of the details regarding the
gender of the person in question is relatively unknown at
the time. So just as a heads up, Okay, So yeah,
I'm gonna go just gonna go over a few things
regarding what we know happened, what the school was, because
(02:14):
I think that kind of that might play into it,
but that will kind of veer on speculation, So we're
just going to limit it towards what we actually know
and then to attempt to avoid speculation on this episophere. Yes,
so someone caring multipier arms entered a private Christian school
in Nashville this Monday morning and shot and killed three
nine year old students and three adult staff members in
(02:34):
their sixties, including the head of the school, doctor Katherine Khans.
Police initially claimed the shooter was a teenager, but minutes
later changed course and described them as a twenty eight
year old woman from Nashville. It was then reported pretty
quickly in NBC News that the shooter was identified as
Audrey Hale, twenty eight, of Nashville, and the police chief
said she identifies as transgender. NBC has another article out
(02:57):
there that says Audrey Hale, twenty eight, who police say
was a transgender woman, quote unquote. So we will get
into that here in a sec But the shooter entered
the Covenant School via a side door, according to the
Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron, and was armed with
at least two quote unquote assault style rifles and a
(03:18):
handgun unquote. It looks like it's an er rifle and
an air pistol and then also a handgun. Nashville Police
Chief John Drake has said, quote at one point she
was a student at that school, but we are unsure
of what year unquote, and that Hale shot through the
door to gain entry into the school. The shooter made
(03:38):
their way through the first and second floors at the school,
firing multiple shots before Hale was killed by police on
the school's second floor. So it's assumed by the police
at this point, and they may have evidence that it's
not been like made public yet that the shooter did
attend to school, but they are unsure for like exactly
how long and what years specifically. I think it's important
(04:01):
to mention a few things about the school just because
this is a very unique mass shooting in a lot
of ways, mass shootings at private schools, let alone private
Christian schools is very rare. And this is also like
a preschool through sixth grade school. So the Covenant School
is a preschool through sixth grade private Christian school founded
(04:22):
in two thousand and one, and it shares the same
location as Covenant Presbyterian Church. The website states it has
thirty three teaching faculty and around two hundred enrolled students
per year, with tuition at around sixteen thousand dollars a year.
According to the school's website. To quote, the Covenant School
is a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church created to assist
Christian parents and the church by providing an exceptional academic
(04:44):
experience founded upon and informed by the Word of God. So,
I mean, honestly, this this is something that's pretty similar
to the type of Christian school that I grew up in.
It's the school that's attached to this church. I also
had around two hundred fellow students, so that this seems
seems to be relatively pretty similar and not super uncommon
(05:04):
for this type of private Christian school. Um, that's kind
of all I'm going to get into that here. I mean,
I've I've looked around the school's website a lot, and
it seems pretty pretty basic in terms of these types
of Presbyterian private Christian schools. But now we're gonna start
getting into some of this stuff regarding the identity of
the shooter, and a lot there's because there's a lot
(05:26):
a lot of information going around. NBC News is now
claiming that the shooter is a transgender woman. I don't
think that's fully accurate, Um, but we're gonna expect quoting
directly from the Yeah, this is to be fair, I mean,
partly NBC's fault because more they should have done as
much research as you did, Garrison. Yeah, but they are
quoting the police. Yeah. Yes, The gist is that the
(05:49):
police identified this as a transgender woman. They have a manifesto.
We don't know what's in the manifesto, but yeah, police
continue gare Yeah, and I guess, I guess one of
the things that's reported is after police said this was
a transgender woman. They also talked about how Hale had
conducted surveillance and prepared for the attack with detailed maps,
(06:09):
and then also the aforementioned to benifesto. But yes, we're
gonna we're gonna move on to some of the stuff
that we do know using just basic open source research stuff.
So there is a LinkedIn page for someone named Audrey
Hale in the Nashville area. They list a lot of
various like illustration jobs they've had for the past few years,
(06:30):
and they do have a little pronoun marker next to
their name that says he him. Hale appears to have
had a website for their graphic design portfolio called AH Illustrations,
so just their initials AH. They have posts in they're
being tagged from twenty twenty three from twenty twenty two,
so it's been at least up for two years. I
(06:50):
tried to do like um metadata stuff on some of
their artwork. I did not really get much in terms
of what year they were posted, but we may be
able to learn more about that later. The website has
an about page that introduces the person as Audrey Hale,
but it also directs you to a now vanished Instagram
page called at Creative period Aiden. So we're going to
(07:13):
go through some of the rights initial stuff a bit later,
because they were already calling us a transgender shooting before
any information came out at all, as a part of
the Sam Hide joke. Yeah, for reference, Sam Hide is
kind of a right wing comedian who had a show
on Adult Swim For the last several years. It has
been a meme to every time there's a shooting, there's
a specific picture of Sam Hide holding a rifle that
(07:34):
people will post and say, I'm getting this picture that
you know, this was the shooter at whatever. It's been
at Parkland, it's been at El Paso, it's been at Duvaldi.
Every single shooting this happens. And with this shooting, someone
photoshopped some ladies head onto sam Hide and claimed immediately
that it was a transgender person. This also ties into
the Highland Park shooting, where the shooter wore women's clothing
(07:57):
at some point to try to escape, and the right
contain unusually tries to claim that that makes it a
transgender shooting. Anyway, Please continue, gare yes. So, by going
through their online portfolio dated as far back as twenty
twenty two, I found a self portrait that has a
that has a different social media user name titled at
(08:18):
cree dot tiv Dre. I think Dre is for like Audre,
and this also appears to be an old Instagram handle
before they changed it to at Creative. Aiden Hale's website
also has another self portrait just tagged with the name
Aiden and Aiden Creates. That one appears to be from
(08:41):
maybe slightly after, but it's kind of unclear with how
the website is laid out. So although the Instagram page
for this person appears to be taken down, it's unknown
if they took it down or if Instagram took it down,
but it is gone and there's no archive of it.
It appears that Hale did have other social media accounts
that are still online. Besides the aforementioned LinkedIn, a TikTok
(09:05):
account by the name of I am Underscore Aiden ten
shares a profile picture with Hale's own website, and it
also links to Hale's Instagram page, which is mentioned on
Hale's website. The TikTok was seldom active, but their first
visible post is from March fifteenth, twenty twenty two. There
(09:25):
are two other posts from that month, and all three
of these posts are like about late nineties early two
thousands video game nostalgia. And thanks to TikTok's use her
name embedding feature, we can see that the account used
to be called Audrey Video Game Nerd Underscore ten before
being changed to I am Aiden ten sometime between March
(09:46):
sixteenth and April fifteenth of last year. Hale's last visible
post is just from over a month ago, February ninth,
twenty twenty three. And yeah, just as a note, kind,
I've gone over less of this than you, but I've
I've combed over what's available. I don't notice any of
the normal red flags. There's not even like pictures of
(10:07):
this person posing with firearms. There's not threats. There's one
video where they seem to be mourning a friend or
a relative. But it's a pretty normal, like in memoriam
style video. None of their art strikes me as disturbing
in any way. No, it's at least one red ram
one they have. They have one piece of Shining fan
art that the Right's been using. It sticks out, but
(10:30):
also like the Shining is one of the most popular
movies of all time. Yeah, no, nothing nothing. As someone
who's looked through the social media accounts of a lot
of shooters, this account is relatively normal, like they there's
nothing in here that would be immediately red flags. They
did a lot of like corporate work. I think I
think they did artwork for the city of Denver. Yeah,
(10:51):
it looks like it. They were being commissioned to do
graphic design for a lot of businesses, a lot of
like local events in Nashville. Um. There's one other thing
from their site that I will mentioned part of their bio.
They have this sentence that says there is a childlike
part of me that loves to go and run around
on the playground, and the Rights using this in like
(11:12):
a like a weird like a groomer way, being like,
oh my god, this this kid wants this adult wants
to go around with two playgrounds and their Childlike this
is this is a completely normal thing to say. This
is like, this is not a red flag. This is
I also enjoy going on the playground. This is not
a red flag either. This is just part of weird
(11:32):
culture war stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I have another thing about
being a kid forever and ever as well. It just
seems that they connected with childhood things and those kind
of things. Yeah, and like psychologically, maybe being kind of
stuck in the past or whatever is a part of
how they describe or justify this in their manifesto. We
just don't know. But the point of the matter is
(11:54):
if you had looked at this person's social media prior,
and this is very different from most shooters, you would
not have thought, oh, this is a person who is
of danger to people. There's there's just not signs in it.
I mean. The one thing that is the kind of
last thing I'll mentioned is the I think the two
other adults that were shot. One was a custodian, There
(12:15):
was a was a I think it was like a
substitute teacher. Um. They were all in their sixties. Um.
It's unclear how long those two other people have been
with the school of the head of the school has
been been there for a while. Um, but I mean
because because it is a preschool through sixth grade school, um,
Hale would not have been at the school relatively recently.
(12:37):
I can try to I'm trying, I'm trying to do
like quick math here to be like if you would
if you be in sixth grade and you're now twenty eight,
seventeen years ago, yeah, eleven years old, right, Americans five? Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah,
So it's it's it's certainly it's it's started in two
thousand and one. So yeah, that's that is that is
(12:59):
that is possible. Yeah. I do want to note a
couple of things before we move on to the right
ring wing reaction. One of them just kind of again
to to sort of boil it down based on what
is available publicly, we know this person seems to have
been born and raised as Audrey. Hale started going by
(13:19):
Aiden at the latest sometime last year. Their LinkedIn shows
them at that point as using he him pronouns, but
still but still with the name Audrey, but still with
the name Audrey. It is actually very much at this
point still unclear how they exact precisely identified what pronouns
(13:39):
they used. We certainly don't know whether or not they
were on any kind of like hormones, not that that
would have an impact on any of this, but we
have very little actual information. The police are saying that
they identify themselves as transgender in the manifesto. At some
point we might learn more as a result of that,
but but it is. It is a lot of what's
being put out as either unclear or you know, wrong
(14:03):
in one way or the other. There's just a lot
of information that is kind of missing about this person.
People are jumping to conclusions on stuff, so we will
probably learn more there later. One more note on this,
The police are the ones that initiated the use of
the term manifesto. Of now, there was no manifesto published
by the shooter. We do not know if this is
(14:25):
a quote unquote manifesto like at all. The police have
claimed that they found writing when they rated this person's house,
So this writing discussing things around their gender or what
they were doing this. This could be anything from like
a suicide note to just like a diary or a journal.
So by using the word manifesto, they're kind of trying
(14:46):
to tie it into that we simply at this point
do not know if this was a manifesto at all,
Like we just that is that is a very loaded
term in this context. I think it's notable that the
shooter did not publish anything. Whereas usually when there's like manifestos,
they are published online, right the shooter, the shooter themselves
(15:06):
will publish it online, and that is kind of part
of their entire attack. That is not the case here.
The shooter did not publish anything about this attack online
that we've or that we've found, or that anyone's found.
So I think that's an important thing to note when
we're talking about the use of the word manifesto here
(15:33):
in terms of like the importance of a manifesto, you know,
speaking of someone who has written professionally about a number
of them. Manifestos are obviously useful, especially when trying to
analyze why someone did something, what their political goal may
have been, if they're indeed there's a political goal, what
their radicalization pathway has been. But a crucial thing is
(15:54):
to never ever take a manifesto purely at face value.
Manifestos are political writings by terrorists, right, That is what
a manifesto is, and they are writings that are kind
of calculated to achieve a goal. And I don't know
what this person put in their manifesto. Their manifesto must
(16:15):
just have been a perfectly accurate summation of their feelings
of why they did this terrible thing. That's possible, we
sit We don't know at this point. But manifestos are
a part of understanding a shooting and what the goal
was of the shooting and what the individual hope to accomplish.
But they cannot and never should be taken at face value.
(16:36):
And that's what a lot of media are going to
do if this every does get public. So please always
show care and skepticism of directly reading from a manifesto,
Like even in the case, you know, there's just a lot,
like in the christ Church manifesto of like bullshit, shit posting,
(16:57):
jokes and stuff thrown in there with the real stuff.
It's generally possible to us to get to gather and
understand motive from a manifesto, and I am you know,
I will read it if it becomes available, but be
very careful with such things. Um. Yeah, speaking of not
being careful, let's talk about the right wing response to
(17:18):
this um because I think, broadly speaking, it's fair to
characterize it as they are claiming this is part of
a line of terror attacks by transgender people. There's a
lot of folks saying that this is reason to ban
gender affirming care, to ban hormone therapy, to ban trans
(17:38):
people from purchasing firearms. This is a pretty rampant on
the right already. It became very quickly, so I actually
want to go over one thing I just came up
and saw while Gare was talking that I think is
interesting as Candice Owens. Candice Owens is a right wing commentator,
unfortunately quite influential and a sizable platform. I want to
(18:03):
quote from her response. Her initial response was the immediate
response when all the information was out was that there'd
been a shooting at this school. I live in Green Hills,
and I'm positively devastated for the families impacted by this tragedy.
Please suspend your politics and instead do what these families
at this Christian school would want. Pray. That's a perfectly
reasonable response, at least for somebody who believes in prayer.
(18:23):
Within a matter of like an hour or so, it
became clear that or information began to come out that
the shooter was likely transgender, at which point Candace suspended
her statement about not making it politics. She posted shortly after,
transgenderism as a mental illness. Keep your children away from
(18:44):
transgendent individuals and their parents. People that support and encourage
as their monsters and should be kept away from children.
They yelled at Matt Walsh made a statement, why haven't
we be given the name of the mass shooter yet?
And Candace responded, because they're wiping the socials so they
can make things up about the person. She noted, as
to a post by Matt Walsh being like, the question
(19:05):
is why this culture is producing so many people who
want to carry out attacks like this. Take the guns
and you'll still have a country infested by homicidal sociopaths.
Where they're coming from, what is creating them? Candas responded,
I would start with the fact that we now celebrate
clinical insanity while we admonish normalcy. People are aspiring to
mental illness because they receive attention and off times are
awarded for perversity. She is essentially taking the stance of like,
(19:26):
we have to blame this on the fact that this
person was transgender, and being transgender is a mental illness. Right.
That's the stance Canvas is taking. That's the stance a
lot of folks are taking. One of the most widely
shared posts from a right winger on this was by
a guy named DC Underscore Draino notes himself as a husband, patriot, lawyer, constitutionalist,
(19:48):
and anti woke. He has six hundred eighty six thousand
followers on Twitter. He has been relentless in posting about
this as an act of transgender terror. He has spread
at some of the information that Garrison added on this
podcast about this person's social media posts, and his posts
are some of the most widely read and like that
I've seen. One of them reads unconfirmed reports identify the
(20:10):
Nashville shooter as Audrey Hale, a biological female that identifies
as he him on their LinkedIn authorities believe the transgender
shooter previously attended the Christian school. He then follows, we
will not let this story be swept under the rug.
Trans terrorism must be confronted head on and stopped. Tennessee
just passed laws restricting sextualized drag shows for children, in
banning the genital mutilation of children was today's mass shooting
(20:32):
at a Christian school by a transgender killer and act
of domestic terror? And when will we start talking about
transgender mass murders targeting innocent school children in our schools?
Enough as enough? And in this they posted a link
to a reader's story about a shooting from last year.
I think it was in Colorado in Denver. This was
a shooting where two people, one of whom was transgender,
(20:55):
walked into a school in Denver and shot at several
class mates, killing one. They claimed it was revenged on
classmates over bullying. The McKinney, the transgender shooter, has been
sentenced recently, so it's been in the news. This is
being built as like a transgender terrorist attack because spoiler,
(21:16):
there's very few cases of trans people carrying out acts
of violence, so they're kind of grabbing what they can
in order to try and make an argument that this
is part of a trend. In the absence of any
kind of manifesto, people are claiming that transidentity motivated the killings.
The police seem to have helped to jump start this.
(21:36):
All right, So first off, we're going to play before
we continue. We're going to play a clip of the
police press conference where the police chief of Nashville talks
about what has happened and talks about the information that
they have about the shooter based on the apparently the
manifesto that they have in the maps that they have.
So we're going to play that now. Our investigations tell
(21:59):
us that she was a former student at the school.
I don't know what grades she's attended on grades, but
we do firmly believe she was a student there. She
does identify as transient. Yes, history, no history at all,
(22:21):
and no motive. Is disappointed to anything discovered in the
apartment or house. No, we have a manifesto. We have
some writings that we're going over that pertain to this day,
the actual incident. We have a map drawn out of
how this was all going to take place. Uh, there's
right now a theory of that's that we may be
(22:43):
able to talk about later, but it's not confirmed, and
so we'll we'll put that out as soon as we can.
There's any reason to believe that how she identifies as
any motive order targeting school, we can give you that
at a later tim There is uh some theory to that.
We're investigating all the leads and once we know exactly,
we'll let you know it was woman. Don't know any
(23:12):
history of nimetal illness at this time, but we are
looking at that. Investigation is on going and I'm sorry,
woman a woman, all right? So yeah, Garrison, you want
to start off here? Yeah, I think giving like the
most charitable reading of that, I think it's possible that
this police chief does not have as a as a
(23:34):
full art. I don't think this police chief has as
an in uh as an in depth understanding of gender
theory as some of us or the listeners do. So
it is just confused by that question is it a
trans man or a trans woman? And he answers by saying, yeah,
they're trans, but they are a woman. Um, So I
(23:54):
think that that could be what's going on. And then
we have outlets like NBC News saying that the person's
a transgender woman because they also are, for one, not
doing like very basic digging online and are also just
making are just usually enjoy repeating the police's talking points
when stuff like this happens, because it's just easier. Hey, everybody,
(24:17):
Robert here. Shortly after we finished this, the police chief
of Nashville, John Drake went on Lester Holt's NBC show
and gave another statement that was much more accurate than
the previous statement that we just played you, which the
right wing is making a lot of hay out of.
In the statement, they note that the shooter attended the
(24:37):
school as a child and was resentful of the school
and of being forced to attend it, that the school
was the target and not any specific individual, and that
the victims were random. They also owe in this statement
to Lester Holt, the police chief makes a lot less
of a deal about the fact that the shooter was
trans It seems like the first statement that they made
was based on either incomplete information or in the at
(25:00):
the moment. But I'm going to play you this statement
and then we will continue the episode. It sounds like
things are moving very quickly. You describe this as a
targeted attack, and you elaborate absolutely so. The person we
know as Audrey Hale, she's a twenty eight year old Nashvillion.
(25:21):
We have belief, or we feel that it's very strongly
that she went to school here in the Nashville area
and she went to that actual school, and and so
there's some belief that there was some resentment for having
to go to that school. Don't have all the details
of that just yet, and and that's why this incident occurred.
(25:45):
Did Hale target in your mind, did Hale target the
school or someone in the school? She targeted random students
in the school, just whoever, and and persons whoever she
came in contact with, she fired rounds. You recovered what
you've described as a manifesto. You've also said that Hale
(26:07):
identified as trans. Do you believe there is a connection
to that. We feel that he identifies as trans. But
we're still in the initial investigation into all of that,
and if it actually played a role into this incident,
as we know more, we'll definitely make that known. But
(26:28):
right now we'll ensure if that actually played a role.
But does the manifesto point you in a particular direction
that you can reveal it does? It has in the
initial investigation. We've turned it over to the FBI. We've
looked over it as well, and it indicates that there
was going to be shootings at multiple locations and the
(26:52):
school was one of them. That was actually a map
of the school detail and surveillance entry points and how
this was going to be carried out on this day. Yeah,
(27:13):
I mean, I think a big part of this is
that after a mass shooting in any national paper or
other media outlet, you're always trying to be first with something,
and that creates a situation where like, you don't fact yet,
you don't do the basic ocent looking up right, You
just like cops have said something, get it out, get
the most, get a ton of cliques, and then that
(27:35):
leads to the disappointing sort of repetition of half or
like in falsehoods that we're seeing. Yeah, and it leads
to it provides a lot of So one thing that
the right has always understood is that the immediate aftermath
of a story that breaks into the news is you
call it the wet cement period, where if people are
(27:55):
talking about it, if you can, if you can lasso
a narrative and drag it out in front of everybody
and get momentum behind it, then that effectively becomes reality
for an awful lot of people. And it's very important,
which is why they're all immediately falling into line on this.
One of the posts that I just ran across is
from Benny Johnson, who's a right wing media guy. So
(28:18):
Benny Johnson says the Colorado springshooter identified as non binary,
the Dinver shooter identified as trans, the Aberdeen shooter identified
as trans, the Nashville shooter identified as trans. One thing
is very clear, the modern trans movement is radicalizing activists
into terrorists. Elon Musk responded to this with an exclamation point,
which is great. The Colorado spring shooter was not non binary.
(28:41):
The Colorado Springshooters lawyers made that claim briefly while they
were trying to cobble together a defense after this person
killed two trans people and shot up an LGBT nightclub.
The Dinver shooter is the person we just talked about. Well,
I mean also they also could be referring to that
to that yes, probably yeah, yeah, and um yeah. It's
(29:05):
uh like it's it's it's frustrating, like what they're doing
with this stuff here, Like it's very obvious, especially in
trying to wrap in the attack of a right wing
terrorist on an LGBT UM club to part like to
an act of like claiming that it's an act of
transgender terrorism. UM. A lot of this is spreading, particularly
(29:27):
among people who paid for blue check marks on the
New Twitter because that's like, yeah, this is kind of
the first mass shooting we have had in the new
Elon's kind of new check mark thing, where like people
are able to kind of verify themselves for money, and
we're about to see all of the old verified accounts
loose verification. Um. We'll talk a little bit more about
(29:49):
how well that's actually working for them later, which is
actually less clear. Um, so that's possibly a positive thing.
But yeah, I mean it's pretty obvious. Andy knows posted
about this. He's another He works for a place called
The Post Millennial. He's a right wing ghoul. He says
the shooting comes amid a surge of far left death
threats in Tennessee over the states, you know, anti trans laws.
(30:12):
He provides no evidence of this. He does quote or
site an Eminem's ad that Audrey Hale made that is
like a Pride ad that says born this way. You know,
it's like a rainbow of Eminem's that says born this
Way appears to be something that they may have done
for money. I don't know, isn't really relevant to the situation.
(30:32):
One of the uglier posts that I found on the
right comes from a guy who identifies himself as an
American dissident. Stu Peters, he's the executive producer of Died Suddenly,
which is one of these right wing attempts to connect
every single death of a person who got vaccinated to
the vaccination, which is a ghoulish thing to do anyway.
And yeah, they initially leapt into there's a lot of
(30:56):
like ugliness in here. Stu is one of the more
open folks, calling them a tranny named Audrey Hale who
is a former student of Covenant School. They kind of
interpret the police statement, which is at least very warbly,
as the police saying this was a direct attack on Christians,
which the cops have not yet said. Stu posts police
(31:19):
admit this was a targeted attack on Christians by a
demonic tranny for some context. Another one of his posts
is arguing that Zelinski is waging war on Christians. So
you know, this is a should be seen with guys
like this in addition to being the troubling thing that
it is part of kind of the broader like echo
(31:41):
chamber that the right has set up for itself, Like
this is troubling and problematic and to a degree frightening,
and they're going to continue to try to push for
disarming trans people. As a result of this, I suspect
we'll see states introduced bills that are red flag laws
just for trans people. This is the kind of thing
that I am worried about, but it also is kind
(32:04):
of worth seeing this as this is very much in
line with the other kind of right wing echo chamber
panic stuff that is everywhere, and so far, while this
is deeply concerning, I'm not seeing evidence that it's breaking
out of the right and like, that doesn't mean it's
(32:25):
not a problem, but it is kind of worth noting.
The actual trending tags right now on Twitter are not
what you'd expect. The Tennessee shooting is not trending on
its own in a particularly high position. It's substantially lower
than the Uvaldi and Highland Park shootings, both of which
you're trending right now. This is based on a Twitter
account I use that is not my Twitter account. It's
(32:47):
just a blank account, so I'm hoping to get a
little bit less of a biased thing. When I looked
at my own accounts trending, it was Uvaldi and Highland
Park as well as Columbine was trending. Sam Hyde is trending,
you know, because always does after a shooting. As a
result of this stuff, guns is trending. I think AR
fifteen was trending on one of my accounts, but the
(33:10):
I'm not yet seeing evidence that this is anywhere like that.
The antitran stuff has made it outside of the right
wing fever swamps. Yea, you are getting like again. That
does not mean it's not troubling. It is deeply troubling,
but it's also not when I'm looking at sort of
(33:32):
liberal and centrist responses to this, it's noteworthy that what
is trending is Uvaldi and Highland Park and Columbine, because
what's common is people sort of putting this within the
continuum of America's nightmarish problem with mass shootings, particularly at schools,
which is the right way to see this. This is
(33:52):
part of an ongoing series of island acts and a
mass shooter culture that exists within this country. And obviously
it's tied to the availability of guns. It's tied to
a number of things. But it is kind of worth
noting that when it comes to what most people are
seeing as a result of this, it is another mass
shooting in America, and not trans people are carrying out
(34:15):
terrorist attacks. That is so far at least just like
a thing I'm seeing in the right wing fever swamps. Yeah,
I think. I think Marjorie Taylor Green is one of
the first, like sitting politicians to make a statement focused
on the shooter's gender identity, saying how much hormones like
testosterone and medications for mental illness was the transgender Nashville
(34:38):
shooter taking. Everyone can stop blaming guns now, and like
this style of messaging is just blaming the shooting on
like HRT and health medication. But there's no indication at
this point that the shooter was taking testosterone or was
on any medication. But this is just a clear attempt
to like tie this shooting into the campaign against trans
(34:58):
healthcare that that Green has been doing for years now,
and to make trans healthcare seem like the reason that
this shooting took place. Yeah, this person has kind of
already become like like Schrodinger's like gender affirming care right
where like and you know, suggesting they're doing attacks because
they can't access gender affirming care. Marjor Teler Green's is
acting that the gender affirming care they did access made
(35:20):
them become more violent, Like the same thing with Jack Sobiak,
who was saying that testosterone increases aggression. Yeah, Jack Possobiak
is an influential Republican advisor and commentator. He's he's a fascist,
like he's a terrible person. He's the guy who initially
spread the Pizza Gate conspiracy theory. But he is influential
(35:42):
on the right because of his ability to get stuff
to go viral on the base. And I guess one
thing we should mention that that kind of ties into
is that Sobiak has been repeating some talking points that
Tucker Carlson focused on. A few nights ago during his show,
there was an NPR segment about trans people who are
purchasing firearms to defend themselves that interviewed somebody on a
(36:06):
number of folks. One of the people they interviewed is
a person who goes by queer Armor on Twitter about
why they've chosen to be armed and like advocate other
trans people arm themselves for self defense. Tucker took quotes
from that person and made a very fearmongering piece about
how NPR and the liberals want to create an army
(36:26):
of trans stormtroopers and disarm regular Americans. Right, that's the piece, yeah,
talking of, like, I guess armed Americans. One thing that's
also twending is just an incredibly crass photo that the
representative for that Tennis fifty district twitter to district the
school was in Who's called Andy Ogles Ogles maybe posted
(36:47):
for his Christmas photo. I guess which is him. It's
a classic Republican politician photo, right, entire family, everyone holding
a different variant of an AAR fifteen. And it's yeah, late, Look,
I think, regardless of what you think about guns, is
kind of crass to be parading them as like culture
war tokens like this. And I've noticed that's been trending
(37:08):
across a lot of at least of timeline I'm seeing. Yeah,
this is this is at the nexus of a number
of things that are like fucked up about this country.
I'm just enjoying Ian Miles Chong's timeline unfortunately. And who
is he emails shop? Right, we engagement provocateur. Yeah, he
lives in Thailand, right, Malaysia, I believe Malaysia. Malaysia. He
(37:33):
has like he has like half a million Twitter followers,
influential on the online sphere. His telegram is culture war room,
which is, you know, giving you what you need to get.
I think so I'm just going to read this tweet
and obviously, like all the all the sort of content
warnings you'd expect, today, a mass show to murder three
children and three ou outs at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee.
(37:54):
The murderer pronouns was were was transgender, and had written
a manifesto detailing their intention, which come days after Tennessee
past child protection laws intended to curb children from being
subjected to trans surgeries and other irreversible procedures. Their heinous
actions follow a month of media driven rhetoric about a
transgenocide and calls for a so called trans Day of
(38:14):
retribution in the United States. It is conceivable that much
of the conservative public derided assists. It's now open season
for gender extremists who have been terrorizing women who dared
to speak out against a woke ideology. When they tell
you what they intend to do, believe them. So Hale
has posted nothing about a trans Day of retribution, has
(38:37):
posted nothing publicly about being trans. Really, there's not a
single post discussing their gender identity online. This is just
they're just trying to weird political points by purposely like
making it sound like this person was writing about this
stuff online, and there's no evidence that they had writing
(38:59):
about the stuff, nor is there any of it online
that we can find. And yeah, I don't know. I mean,
it's it's basic stuff that people like him do in
the aftermath of like any type of event like this. Yeah,
you know, we're gonna end now, because anything pretty much
anymore we said would be getting into speculation or just
belaboring the point about these fucking right wing ghouls. But
(39:20):
I do want to end on a post from a follower,
a Twitter personality who I consider to be pretty pretty savvy.
They go by Juniper on Twitter. They noted this fifteen
years ago. Anytime there was a shooting, they would blom
it on Muslims, and if it were a Muslim, they
would go hogwhile trying to indict all Muslims. They're doing
(39:40):
that right now with the Nashville school shooting, and we'll
try to indict all trans people. Just don't engage. See
a Matt Walsh take that is incredibly aggravating. Ignore it.
See a politician tweet miss gendering the shooter while simultaneously
trying to blame all trans people. Ignore it. Anyone with
a brain and a shred of empathy, we'll see right
wingers as the psychopaths they are. A lot of trans
people are rightfully scared in the world right now. People
(40:00):
hate us without even knowing us, and how amazing we are.
Just know that you are loved and we will win.
The world cannot hate us forever. Hey, everybody, Garrison and
I are going to put together a post, a substack
post sort of synthesizing their research and what I've got
so far in the right wing response, and we will
(40:22):
be posting that up. It'll be at the at shatter
zone dot substack dot com if you want it in
an easier text version that you can kind of share
with people. It could happen here as a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us
out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could
(40:43):
Happen here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
Thanks for listening.
Hey, everyone, this is It Could Happen here, a podcast
about things falling apart sometimes about putting things back together.
This is one of the former episodes, because we are
recording this in the immediate wake, within a couple of
hours of America's the United States of America's most recent
mass shooting in Tennessee at a Christian school called Covenant.
(00:29):
You know, obviously there are way too many mass shootings
in the United States for us to cover each one.
We are talking about this now in a timely manner
because there's a bunch of very specific disinformation coming out
about it, and particularly disinformation that is part of the
broader targeting by the right wing of transgender people. So
(00:50):
I'm going to for the first part of this, I'm
going to turn things over to Garrison, who has been
doing specific research on the shooter and what we can
actually verify at this moment about their identity. Upfront, I'll
say that the police have identified this person as Audrey
Hale twenty eight of Nashville NBC News notes quote who
(01:11):
said she identifies as transgender. Again, this is not quite right.
We'll talk about it, but the right wing is obviously
running with the idea that this is a transgender shooter
and part of a trans a series. They will argue
of transgender attacks on Christians. We're going to talk about
the right wing sort of analysis of this later, but
(01:31):
first I'm going to again push to Garrison, who will
talk about what we actually can verify about this person
and about this shooting at this point. Yeah, just as
a note here, throughout this episode, there will be some
what is probably miss gendering because we're going to be
quoting from a lot of other people's statements, and also
there will be mentions of like a few slurs against
(01:52):
trans people just because we are quoting from a whole
bunch of stuff and some of the details regarding the
gender of the person in question is relatively unknown at
the time. So just as a heads up, Okay, So yeah,
I'm gonna go just gonna go over a few things
regarding what we know happened, what the school was, because
(02:14):
I think that kind of that might play into it,
but that will kind of veer on speculation, So we're
just going to limit it towards what we actually know
and then to attempt to avoid speculation on this episophere. Yes,
so someone caring multipier arms entered a private Christian school
in Nashville this Monday morning and shot and killed three
nine year old students and three adult staff members in
(02:34):
their sixties, including the head of the school, doctor Katherine Khans.
Police initially claimed the shooter was a teenager, but minutes
later changed course and described them as a twenty eight
year old woman from Nashville. It was then reported pretty
quickly in NBC News that the shooter was identified as
Audrey Hale, twenty eight, of Nashville, and the police chief
said she identifies as transgender. NBC has another article out
(02:57):
there that says Audrey Hale, twenty eight, who police say
was a transgender woman, quote unquote. So we will get
into that here in a sec But the shooter entered
the Covenant School via a side door, according to the
Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron, and was armed with
at least two quote unquote assault style rifles and a
(03:18):
handgun unquote. It looks like it's an er rifle and
an air pistol and then also a handgun. Nashville Police
Chief John Drake has said, quote at one point she
was a student at that school, but we are unsure
of what year unquote, and that Hale shot through the
door to gain entry into the school. The shooter made
(03:38):
their way through the first and second floors at the school,
firing multiple shots before Hale was killed by police on
the school's second floor. So it's assumed by the police
at this point, and they may have evidence that it's
not been like made public yet that the shooter did
attend to school, but they are unsure for like exactly
how long and what years specifically. I think it's important
(04:01):
to mention a few things about the school just because
this is a very unique mass shooting in a lot
of ways, mass shootings at private schools, let alone private
Christian schools is very rare. And this is also like
a preschool through sixth grade school. So the Covenant School
is a preschool through sixth grade private Christian school founded
(04:22):
in two thousand and one, and it shares the same
location as Covenant Presbyterian Church. The website states it has
thirty three teaching faculty and around two hundred enrolled students
per year, with tuition at around sixteen thousand dollars a year.
According to the school's website. To quote, the Covenant School
is a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church created to assist
Christian parents and the church by providing an exceptional academic
(04:44):
experience founded upon and informed by the Word of God. So,
I mean, honestly, this this is something that's pretty similar
to the type of Christian school that I grew up in.
It's the school that's attached to this church. I also
had around two hundred fellow students, so that this seems
seems to be relatively pretty similar and not super uncommon
(05:04):
for this type of private Christian school. Um, that's kind
of all I'm going to get into that here. I mean,
I've I've looked around the school's website a lot, and
it seems pretty pretty basic in terms of these types
of Presbyterian private Christian schools. But now we're gonna start
getting into some of this stuff regarding the identity of
the shooter, and a lot there's because there's a lot
(05:26):
a lot of information going around. NBC News is now
claiming that the shooter is a transgender woman. I don't
think that's fully accurate, Um, but we're gonna expect quoting
directly from the Yeah, this is to be fair, I mean,
partly NBC's fault because more they should have done as
much research as you did, Garrison. Yeah, but they are
quoting the police. Yeah. Yes, The gist is that the
(05:49):
police identified this as a transgender woman. They have a manifesto.
We don't know what's in the manifesto, but yeah, police
continue gare Yeah, and I guess, I guess one of
the things that's reported is after police said this was
a transgender woman. They also talked about how Hale had
conducted surveillance and prepared for the attack with detailed maps,
(06:09):
and then also the aforementioned to benifesto. But yes, we're
gonna we're gonna move on to some of the stuff
that we do know using just basic open source research stuff.
So there is a LinkedIn page for someone named Audrey
Hale in the Nashville area. They list a lot of
various like illustration jobs they've had for the past few years,
(06:30):
and they do have a little pronoun marker next to
their name that says he him. Hale appears to have
had a website for their graphic design portfolio called AH Illustrations,
so just their initials AH. They have posts in they're
being tagged from twenty twenty three from twenty twenty two,
so it's been at least up for two years. I
(06:50):
tried to do like um metadata stuff on some of
their artwork. I did not really get much in terms
of what year they were posted, but we may be
able to learn more about that later. The website has
an about page that introduces the person as Audrey Hale,
but it also directs you to a now vanished Instagram
page called at Creative period Aiden. So we're going to
(07:13):
go through some of the rights initial stuff a bit later,
because they were already calling us a transgender shooting before
any information came out at all, as a part of
the Sam Hide joke. Yeah, for reference, Sam Hide is
kind of a right wing comedian who had a show
on Adult Swim For the last several years. It has
been a meme to every time there's a shooting, there's
a specific picture of Sam Hide holding a rifle that
(07:34):
people will post and say, I'm getting this picture that
you know, this was the shooter at whatever. It's been
at Parkland, it's been at El Paso, it's been at Duvaldi.
Every single shooting this happens. And with this shooting, someone
photoshopped some ladies head onto sam Hide and claimed immediately
that it was a transgender person. This also ties into
the Highland Park shooting, where the shooter wore women's clothing
(07:57):
at some point to try to escape, and the right
contain unusually tries to claim that that makes it a
transgender shooting. Anyway, Please continue, gare yes. So, by going
through their online portfolio dated as far back as twenty
twenty two, I found a self portrait that has a
that has a different social media user name titled at
(08:18):
cree dot tiv Dre. I think Dre is for like Audre,
and this also appears to be an old Instagram handle
before they changed it to at Creative. Aiden Hale's website
also has another self portrait just tagged with the name
Aiden and Aiden Creates. That one appears to be from
(08:41):
maybe slightly after, but it's kind of unclear with how
the website is laid out. So although the Instagram page
for this person appears to be taken down, it's unknown
if they took it down or if Instagram took it down,
but it is gone and there's no archive of it.
It appears that Hale did have other social media accounts
that are still online. Besides the aforementioned LinkedIn, a TikTok
(09:05):
account by the name of I am Underscore Aiden ten
shares a profile picture with Hale's own website, and it
also links to Hale's Instagram page, which is mentioned on
Hale's website. The TikTok was seldom active, but their first
visible post is from March fifteenth, twenty twenty two. There
(09:25):
are two other posts from that month, and all three
of these posts are like about late nineties early two
thousands video game nostalgia. And thanks to TikTok's use her
name embedding feature, we can see that the account used
to be called Audrey Video Game Nerd Underscore ten before
being changed to I am Aiden ten sometime between March
(09:46):
sixteenth and April fifteenth of last year. Hale's last visible
post is just from over a month ago, February ninth,
twenty twenty three. And yeah, just as a note, kind,
I've gone over less of this than you, but I've
I've combed over what's available. I don't notice any of
the normal red flags. There's not even like pictures of
(10:07):
this person posing with firearms. There's not threats. There's one
video where they seem to be mourning a friend or
a relative. But it's a pretty normal, like in memoriam
style video. None of their art strikes me as disturbing
in any way. No, it's at least one red ram
one they have. They have one piece of Shining fan
art that the Right's been using. It sticks out, but
(10:30):
also like the Shining is one of the most popular
movies of all time. Yeah, no, nothing nothing. As someone
who's looked through the social media accounts of a lot
of shooters, this account is relatively normal, like they there's
nothing in here that would be immediately red flags. They
did a lot of like corporate work. I think I
think they did artwork for the city of Denver. Yeah,
(10:51):
it looks like it. They were being commissioned to do
graphic design for a lot of businesses, a lot of
like local events in Nashville. Um. There's one other thing
from their site that I will mentioned part of their bio.
They have this sentence that says there is a childlike
part of me that loves to go and run around
on the playground, and the Rights using this in like
(11:12):
a like a weird like a groomer way, being like,
oh my god, this this kid wants this adult wants
to go around with two playgrounds and their Childlike this
is this is a completely normal thing to say. This
is like, this is not a red flag. This is
I also enjoy going on the playground. This is not
a red flag either. This is just part of weird
(11:32):
culture war stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I have another thing about
being a kid forever and ever as well. It just
seems that they connected with childhood things and those kind
of things. Yeah, and like psychologically, maybe being kind of
stuck in the past or whatever is a part of
how they describe or justify this in their manifesto. We
just don't know. But the point of the matter is
(11:54):
if you had looked at this person's social media prior,
and this is very different from most shooters, you would
not have thought, oh, this is a person who is
of danger to people. There's there's just not signs in it.
I mean. The one thing that is the kind of
last thing I'll mentioned is the I think the two
other adults that were shot. One was a custodian, There
(12:15):
was a was a I think it was like a
substitute teacher. Um. They were all in their sixties. Um.
It's unclear how long those two other people have been
with the school of the head of the school has
been been there for a while. Um, but I mean
because because it is a preschool through sixth grade school, um,
Hale would not have been at the school relatively recently.
(12:37):
I can try to I'm trying, I'm trying to do
like quick math here to be like if you would
if you be in sixth grade and you're now twenty eight,
seventeen years ago, yeah, eleven years old, right, Americans five? Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah,
So it's it's it's certainly it's it's started in two
thousand and one. So yeah, that's that is that is
(12:59):
that is possible. Yeah. I do want to note a
couple of things before we move on to the right
ring wing reaction. One of them just kind of again
to to sort of boil it down based on what
is available publicly, we know this person seems to have
been born and raised as Audrey. Hale started going by
(13:19):
Aiden at the latest sometime last year. Their LinkedIn shows
them at that point as using he him pronouns, but
still but still with the name Audrey, but still with
the name Audrey. It is actually very much at this
point still unclear how they exact precisely identified what pronouns
(13:39):
they used. We certainly don't know whether or not they
were on any kind of like hormones, not that that
would have an impact on any of this, but we
have very little actual information. The police are saying that
they identify themselves as transgender in the manifesto. At some
point we might learn more as a result of that,
but but it is. It is a lot of what's
being put out as either unclear or you know, wrong
(14:03):
in one way or the other. There's just a lot
of information that is kind of missing about this person.
People are jumping to conclusions on stuff, so we will
probably learn more there later. One more note on this,
The police are the ones that initiated the use of
the term manifesto. Of now, there was no manifesto published
by the shooter. We do not know if this is
(14:25):
a quote unquote manifesto like at all. The police have
claimed that they found writing when they rated this person's house,
So this writing discussing things around their gender or what
they were doing this. This could be anything from like
a suicide note to just like a diary or a journal.
So by using the word manifesto, they're kind of trying
(14:46):
to tie it into that we simply at this point
do not know if this was a manifesto at all,
Like we just that is that is a very loaded
term in this context. I think it's notable that the
shooter did not publish anything. Whereas usually when there's like manifestos,
they are published online, right the shooter, the shooter themselves
(15:06):
will publish it online, and that is kind of part
of their entire attack. That is not the case here.
The shooter did not publish anything about this attack online
that we've or that we've found, or that anyone's found.
So I think that's an important thing to note when
we're talking about the use of the word manifesto here
(15:33):
in terms of like the importance of a manifesto, you know,
speaking of someone who has written professionally about a number
of them. Manifestos are obviously useful, especially when trying to
analyze why someone did something, what their political goal may
have been, if they're indeed there's a political goal, what
their radicalization pathway has been. But a crucial thing is
(15:54):
to never ever take a manifesto purely at face value.
Manifestos are political writings by terrorists, right, That is what
a manifesto is, and they are writings that are kind
of calculated to achieve a goal. And I don't know
what this person put in their manifesto. Their manifesto must
(16:15):
just have been a perfectly accurate summation of their feelings
of why they did this terrible thing. That's possible, we
sit We don't know at this point. But manifestos are
a part of understanding a shooting and what the goal
was of the shooting and what the individual hope to accomplish.
But they cannot and never should be taken at face value.
(16:36):
And that's what a lot of media are going to
do if this every does get public. So please always
show care and skepticism of directly reading from a manifesto,
Like even in the case, you know, there's just a lot,
like in the christ Church manifesto of like bullshit, shit posting,
(16:57):
jokes and stuff thrown in there with the real stuff.
It's generally possible to us to get to gather and
understand motive from a manifesto, and I am you know,
I will read it if it becomes available, but be
very careful with such things. Um. Yeah, speaking of not
being careful, let's talk about the right wing response to
(17:18):
this um because I think, broadly speaking, it's fair to
characterize it as they are claiming this is part of
a line of terror attacks by transgender people. There's a
lot of folks saying that this is reason to ban
gender affirming care, to ban hormone therapy, to ban trans
(17:38):
people from purchasing firearms. This is a pretty rampant on
the right already. It became very quickly, so I actually
want to go over one thing I just came up
and saw while Gare was talking that I think is
interesting as Candice Owens. Candice Owens is a right wing commentator,
unfortunately quite influential and a sizable platform. I want to
(18:03):
quote from her response. Her initial response was the immediate
response when all the information was out was that there'd
been a shooting at this school. I live in Green Hills,
and I'm positively devastated for the families impacted by this tragedy.
Please suspend your politics and instead do what these families
at this Christian school would want. Pray. That's a perfectly
reasonable response, at least for somebody who believes in prayer.
(18:23):
Within a matter of like an hour or so, it
became clear that or information began to come out that
the shooter was likely transgender, at which point Candace suspended
her statement about not making it politics. She posted shortly after,
transgenderism as a mental illness. Keep your children away from
(18:44):
transgendent individuals and their parents. People that support and encourage
as their monsters and should be kept away from children.
They yelled at Matt Walsh made a statement, why haven't
we be given the name of the mass shooter yet?
And Candace responded, because they're wiping the socials so they
can make things up about the person. She noted, as
to a post by Matt Walsh being like, the question
(19:05):
is why this culture is producing so many people who
want to carry out attacks like this. Take the guns
and you'll still have a country infested by homicidal sociopaths.
Where they're coming from, what is creating them? Candas responded,
I would start with the fact that we now celebrate
clinical insanity while we admonish normalcy. People are aspiring to
mental illness because they receive attention and off times are
awarded for perversity. She is essentially taking the stance of like,
(19:26):
we have to blame this on the fact that this
person was transgender, and being transgender is a mental illness. Right.
That's the stance Canvas is taking. That's the stance a
lot of folks are taking. One of the most widely
shared posts from a right winger on this was by
a guy named DC Underscore Draino notes himself as a husband, patriot, lawyer, constitutionalist,
(19:48):
and anti woke. He has six hundred eighty six thousand
followers on Twitter. He has been relentless in posting about
this as an act of transgender terror. He has spread
at some of the information that Garrison added on this
podcast about this person's social media posts, and his posts
are some of the most widely read and like that
I've seen. One of them reads unconfirmed reports identify the
(20:10):
Nashville shooter as Audrey Hale, a biological female that identifies
as he him on their LinkedIn authorities believe the transgender
shooter previously attended the Christian school. He then follows, we
will not let this story be swept under the rug.
Trans terrorism must be confronted head on and stopped. Tennessee
just passed laws restricting sextualized drag shows for children, in
banning the genital mutilation of children was today's mass shooting
(20:32):
at a Christian school by a transgender killer and act
of domestic terror? And when will we start talking about
transgender mass murders targeting innocent school children in our schools?
Enough as enough? And in this they posted a link
to a reader's story about a shooting from last year.
I think it was in Colorado in Denver. This was
a shooting where two people, one of whom was transgender,
(20:55):
walked into a school in Denver and shot at several
class mates, killing one. They claimed it was revenged on
classmates over bullying. The McKinney, the transgender shooter, has been
sentenced recently, so it's been in the news. This is
being built as like a transgender terrorist attack because spoiler,
(21:16):
there's very few cases of trans people carrying out acts
of violence, so they're kind of grabbing what they can
in order to try and make an argument that this
is part of a trend. In the absence of any
kind of manifesto, people are claiming that transidentity motivated the killings.
The police seem to have helped to jump start this.
(21:36):
All right, So first off, we're going to play before
we continue. We're going to play a clip of the
police press conference where the police chief of Nashville talks
about what has happened and talks about the information that
they have about the shooter based on the apparently the
manifesto that they have in the maps that they have.
So we're going to play that now. Our investigations tell
(21:59):
us that she was a former student at the school.
I don't know what grades she's attended on grades, but
we do firmly believe she was a student there. She
does identify as transient. Yes, history, no history at all,
(22:21):
and no motive. Is disappointed to anything discovered in the
apartment or house. No, we have a manifesto. We have
some writings that we're going over that pertain to this day,
the actual incident. We have a map drawn out of
how this was all going to take place. Uh, there's
right now a theory of that's that we may be
(22:43):
able to talk about later, but it's not confirmed, and
so we'll we'll put that out as soon as we can.
There's any reason to believe that how she identifies as
any motive order targeting school, we can give you that
at a later tim There is uh some theory to that.
We're investigating all the leads and once we know exactly,
we'll let you know it was woman. Don't know any
(23:12):
history of nimetal illness at this time, but we are
looking at that. Investigation is on going and I'm sorry,
woman a woman, all right? So yeah, Garrison, you want
to start off here? Yeah, I think giving like the
most charitable reading of that, I think it's possible that
this police chief does not have as a as a
(23:34):
full art. I don't think this police chief has as
an in uh as an in depth understanding of gender
theory as some of us or the listeners do. So
it is just confused by that question is it a
trans man or a trans woman? And he answers by saying, yeah,
they're trans, but they are a woman. Um, So I
(23:54):
think that that could be what's going on. And then
we have outlets like NBC News saying that the person's
a transgender woman because they also are, for one, not
doing like very basic digging online and are also just
making are just usually enjoy repeating the police's talking points
when stuff like this happens, because it's just easier. Hey, everybody,
(24:17):
Robert here. Shortly after we finished this, the police chief
of Nashville, John Drake went on Lester Holt's NBC show
and gave another statement that was much more accurate than
the previous statement that we just played you, which the
right wing is making a lot of hay out of.
In the statement, they note that the shooter attended the
(24:37):
school as a child and was resentful of the school
and of being forced to attend it, that the school
was the target and not any specific individual, and that
the victims were random. They also owe in this statement
to Lester Holt, the police chief makes a lot less
of a deal about the fact that the shooter was
trans It seems like the first statement that they made
was based on either incomplete information or in the at
(25:00):
the moment. But I'm going to play you this statement
and then we will continue the episode. It sounds like
things are moving very quickly. You describe this as a
targeted attack, and you elaborate absolutely so. The person we
know as Audrey Hale, she's a twenty eight year old Nashvillion.
(25:21):
We have belief, or we feel that it's very strongly
that she went to school here in the Nashville area
and she went to that actual school, and and so
there's some belief that there was some resentment for having
to go to that school. Don't have all the details
of that just yet, and and that's why this incident occurred.
(25:45):
Did Hale target in your mind, did Hale target the
school or someone in the school? She targeted random students
in the school, just whoever, and and persons whoever she
came in contact with, she fired rounds. You recovered what
you've described as a manifesto. You've also said that Hale
(26:07):
identified as trans. Do you believe there is a connection
to that. We feel that he identifies as trans. But
we're still in the initial investigation into all of that,
and if it actually played a role into this incident,
as we know more, we'll definitely make that known. But
(26:28):
right now we'll ensure if that actually played a role.
But does the manifesto point you in a particular direction
that you can reveal it does? It has in the
initial investigation. We've turned it over to the FBI. We've
looked over it as well, and it indicates that there
was going to be shootings at multiple locations and the
(26:52):
school was one of them. That was actually a map
of the school detail and surveillance entry points and how
this was going to be carried out on this day. Yeah,
(27:13):
I mean, I think a big part of this is
that after a mass shooting in any national paper or
other media outlet, you're always trying to be first with something,
and that creates a situation where like, you don't fact yet,
you don't do the basic ocent looking up right, You
just like cops have said something, get it out, get
the most, get a ton of cliques, and then that
(27:35):
leads to the disappointing sort of repetition of half or
like in falsehoods that we're seeing. Yeah, and it leads
to it provides a lot of So one thing that
the right has always understood is that the immediate aftermath
of a story that breaks into the news is you
call it the wet cement period, where if people are
(27:55):
talking about it, if you can, if you can lasso
a narrative and drag it out in front of everybody
and get momentum behind it, then that effectively becomes reality
for an awful lot of people. And it's very important,
which is why they're all immediately falling into line on this.
One of the posts that I just ran across is
from Benny Johnson, who's a right wing media guy. So
(28:18):
Benny Johnson says the Colorado springshooter identified as non binary,
the Dinver shooter identified as trans, the Aberdeen shooter identified
as trans, the Nashville shooter identified as trans. One thing
is very clear, the modern trans movement is radicalizing activists
into terrorists. Elon Musk responded to this with an exclamation point,
which is great. The Colorado spring shooter was not non binary.
(28:41):
The Colorado Springshooters lawyers made that claim briefly while they
were trying to cobble together a defense after this person
killed two trans people and shot up an LGBT nightclub.
The Dinver shooter is the person we just talked about. Well,
I mean also they also could be referring to that
to that yes, probably yeah, yeah, and um yeah. It's
(29:05):
uh like it's it's it's frustrating, like what they're doing
with this stuff here, Like it's very obvious, especially in
trying to wrap in the attack of a right wing
terrorist on an LGBT UM club to part like to
an act of like claiming that it's an act of
transgender terrorism. UM. A lot of this is spreading, particularly
(29:27):
among people who paid for blue check marks on the
New Twitter because that's like, yeah, this is kind of
the first mass shooting we have had in the new
Elon's kind of new check mark thing, where like people
are able to kind of verify themselves for money, and
we're about to see all of the old verified accounts
loose verification. Um. We'll talk a little bit more about
(29:49):
how well that's actually working for them later, which is
actually less clear. Um, so that's possibly a positive thing.
But yeah, I mean it's pretty obvious. Andy knows posted
about this. He's another He works for a place called
The Post Millennial. He's a right wing ghoul. He says
the shooting comes amid a surge of far left death
threats in Tennessee over the states, you know, anti trans laws.
(30:12):
He provides no evidence of this. He does quote or
site an Eminem's ad that Audrey Hale made that is
like a Pride ad that says born this way. You know,
it's like a rainbow of Eminem's that says born this
Way appears to be something that they may have done
for money. I don't know, isn't really relevant to the situation.
(30:32):
One of the uglier posts that I found on the
right comes from a guy who identifies himself as an
American dissident. Stu Peters, he's the executive producer of Died Suddenly,
which is one of these right wing attempts to connect
every single death of a person who got vaccinated to
the vaccination, which is a ghoulish thing to do anyway.
And yeah, they initially leapt into there's a lot of
(30:56):
like ugliness in here. Stu is one of the more
open folks, calling them a tranny named Audrey Hale who
is a former student of Covenant School. They kind of
interpret the police statement, which is at least very warbly,
as the police saying this was a direct attack on Christians,
which the cops have not yet said. Stu posts police
(31:19):
admit this was a targeted attack on Christians by a
demonic tranny for some context. Another one of his posts
is arguing that Zelinski is waging war on Christians. So
you know, this is a should be seen with guys
like this in addition to being the troubling thing that
it is part of kind of the broader like echo
(31:41):
chamber that the right has set up for itself, Like
this is troubling and problematic and to a degree frightening,
and they're going to continue to try to push for
disarming trans people. As a result of this, I suspect
we'll see states introduced bills that are red flag laws
just for trans people. This is the kind of thing
that I am worried about, but it also is kind
(32:04):
of worth seeing this as this is very much in
line with the other kind of right wing echo chamber
panic stuff that is everywhere, and so far, while this
is deeply concerning, I'm not seeing evidence that it's breaking
out of the right and like, that doesn't mean it's
(32:25):
not a problem, but it is kind of worth noting.
The actual trending tags right now on Twitter are not
what you'd expect. The Tennessee shooting is not trending on
its own in a particularly high position. It's substantially lower
than the Uvaldi and Highland Park shootings, both of which
you're trending right now. This is based on a Twitter
account I use that is not my Twitter account. It's
(32:47):
just a blank account, so I'm hoping to get a
little bit less of a biased thing. When I looked
at my own accounts trending, it was Uvaldi and Highland
Park as well as Columbine was trending. Sam Hyde is trending,
you know, because always does after a shooting. As a
result of this stuff, guns is trending. I think AR
fifteen was trending on one of my accounts, but the
(33:10):
I'm not yet seeing evidence that this is anywhere like that.
The antitran stuff has made it outside of the right
wing fever swamps. Yea, you are getting like again. That
does not mean it's not troubling. It is deeply troubling,
but it's also not when I'm looking at sort of
(33:32):
liberal and centrist responses to this, it's noteworthy that what
is trending is Uvaldi and Highland Park and Columbine, because
what's common is people sort of putting this within the
continuum of America's nightmarish problem with mass shootings, particularly at schools,
which is the right way to see this. This is
(33:52):
part of an ongoing series of island acts and a
mass shooter culture that exists within this country. And obviously
it's tied to the availability of guns. It's tied to
a number of things. But it is kind of worth
noting that when it comes to what most people are
seeing as a result of this, it is another mass
shooting in America, and not trans people are carrying out
(34:15):
terrorist attacks. That is so far at least just like
a thing I'm seeing in the right wing fever swamps. Yeah,
I think. I think Marjorie Taylor Green is one of
the first, like sitting politicians to make a statement focused
on the shooter's gender identity, saying how much hormones like
testosterone and medications for mental illness was the transgender Nashville
(34:38):
shooter taking. Everyone can stop blaming guns now, and like
this style of messaging is just blaming the shooting on
like HRT and health medication. But there's no indication at
this point that the shooter was taking testosterone or was
on any medication. But this is just a clear attempt
to like tie this shooting into the campaign against trans
(34:58):
healthcare that that Green has been doing for years now,
and to make trans healthcare seem like the reason that
this shooting took place. Yeah, this person has kind of
already become like like Schrodinger's like gender affirming care right
where like and you know, suggesting they're doing attacks because
they can't access gender affirming care. Marjor Teler Green's is
acting that the gender affirming care they did access made
(35:20):
them become more violent, Like the same thing with Jack Sobiak,
who was saying that testosterone increases aggression. Yeah, Jack Possobiak
is an influential Republican advisor and commentator. He's he's a fascist,
like he's a terrible person. He's the guy who initially
spread the Pizza Gate conspiracy theory. But he is influential
(35:42):
on the right because of his ability to get stuff
to go viral on the base. And I guess one
thing we should mention that that kind of ties into
is that Sobiak has been repeating some talking points that
Tucker Carlson focused on. A few nights ago during his show,
there was an NPR segment about trans people who are
purchasing firearms to defend themselves that interviewed somebody on a
(36:06):
number of folks. One of the people they interviewed is
a person who goes by queer Armor on Twitter about
why they've chosen to be armed and like advocate other
trans people arm themselves for self defense. Tucker took quotes
from that person and made a very fearmongering piece about
how NPR and the liberals want to create an army
(36:26):
of trans stormtroopers and disarm regular Americans. Right, that's the piece, yeah,
talking of, like, I guess armed Americans. One thing that's
also twending is just an incredibly crass photo that the
representative for that Tennis fifty district twitter to district the
school was in Who's called Andy Ogles Ogles maybe posted
(36:47):
for his Christmas photo. I guess which is him. It's
a classic Republican politician photo, right, entire family, everyone holding
a different variant of an AAR fifteen. And it's yeah, late, Look,
I think, regardless of what you think about guns, is
kind of crass to be parading them as like culture
war tokens like this. And I've noticed that's been trending
(37:08):
across a lot of at least of timeline I'm seeing. Yeah,
this is this is at the nexus of a number
of things that are like fucked up about this country.
I'm just enjoying Ian Miles Chong's timeline unfortunately. And who
is he emails shop? Right, we engagement provocateur. Yeah, he
lives in Thailand, right, Malaysia, I believe Malaysia. Malaysia. He
(37:33):
has like he has like half a million Twitter followers,
influential on the online sphere. His telegram is culture war room,
which is, you know, giving you what you need to get.
I think so I'm just going to read this tweet
and obviously, like all the all the sort of content
warnings you'd expect, today, a mass show to murder three
children and three ou outs at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee.
(37:54):
The murderer pronouns was were was transgender, and had written
a manifesto detailing their intention, which come days after Tennessee
past child protection laws intended to curb children from being
subjected to trans surgeries and other irreversible procedures. Their heinous
actions follow a month of media driven rhetoric about a
transgenocide and calls for a so called trans Day of
(38:14):
retribution in the United States. It is conceivable that much
of the conservative public derided assists. It's now open season
for gender extremists who have been terrorizing women who dared
to speak out against a woke ideology. When they tell
you what they intend to do, believe them. So Hale
has posted nothing about a trans Day of retribution, has
(38:37):
posted nothing publicly about being trans. Really, there's not a
single post discussing their gender identity online. This is just
they're just trying to weird political points by purposely like
making it sound like this person was writing about this
stuff online, and there's no evidence that they had writing
(38:59):
about the stuff, nor is there any of it online
that we can find. And yeah, I don't know. I mean,
it's it's basic stuff that people like him do in
the aftermath of like any type of event like this. Yeah,
you know, we're gonna end now, because anything pretty much
anymore we said would be getting into speculation or just
belaboring the point about these fucking right wing ghouls. But
(39:20):
I do want to end on a post from a follower,
a Twitter personality who I consider to be pretty pretty savvy.
They go by Juniper on Twitter. They noted this fifteen
years ago. Anytime there was a shooting, they would blom
it on Muslims, and if it were a Muslim, they
would go hogwhile trying to indict all Muslims. They're doing
(39:40):
that right now with the Nashville school shooting, and we'll
try to indict all trans people. Just don't engage. See
a Matt Walsh take that is incredibly aggravating. Ignore it.
See a politician tweet miss gendering the shooter while simultaneously
trying to blame all trans people. Ignore it. Anyone with
a brain and a shred of empathy, we'll see right
wingers as the psychopaths they are. A lot of trans
people are rightfully scared in the world right now. People
(40:00):
hate us without even knowing us, and how amazing we are.
Just know that you are loved and we will win.
The world cannot hate us forever. Hey, everybody, Garrison and
I are going to put together a post, a substack
post sort of synthesizing their research and what I've got
so far in the right wing response, and we will
(40:22):
be posting that up. It'll be at the at shatter
zone dot substack dot com if you want it in
an easier text version that you can kind of share
with people. It could happen here as a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us
out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could
(40:43):
Happen here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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