NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Metro Nashville Police Department put seven officers on "administrative assignment," as the department continues its active investigation into who leaked three pages from The Covenant School shooter’s writings.
NBC affiliate WSMV in Nashville reported on Wednesday that the officers were placed on leave in connection with MNPD's investigation into the source of the leak. Don Aaron, a spokesperson for the police department, said "seven individuals are on administrative assignment to protect the integrity of the active, progressing investigation."
He also said the decision was "absolutely not-punitive" and the department would not identify the people who were put on administrative assignment. He also said all seven officers would continue to have full police power as the investigation moves forward.
The Nashville mayor's office is also investigating after a Conservative commentator leaked a small selection of unverified documents that they claim were written by The Covenant School shooter. WSMV said a source confirmed the three images belonged to The Covenant School shooter.
The leak concerns three pages from a notebook posted to social media by Conservative talk show host Steven Crowder.
The Metro Nashville Police Department has not publically released the shooter's writings, and legal battles are still underway arguing for the documents to be publicly released. One page appears to have been written the day of the March 27 shooting that killed three 9-year-olds and three adults at the private Christian elementary school.
According to court documents obtained by the Associated Press, the shooter left behind at least 20 journals, a suicide note and a memoir. A coalition made up of two news organizations, a state senator and a gun-rights group sued for the records after the Metro Nashville Police Department declined their request through the Tennessee Public Records Act earlier this year.
Later Monday, MNPD said the photographs were not crime scene images. The Metropolitan Department of Law was conducting an investigation into how the three photographs were disseminated.
Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell told WSMV Monday the city’s legal department is also investigating.
“I have directed Wally Dietz, Metro’s Law Director, to initiate an investigation into how these images could have been released,” Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell said. “That investigation may involve local, state, and federal authorities. I am deeply concerned with the safety, security, and well-being of the Covenant families and all Nashvillians who are grieving.”
Phil Williams, the chief investigative reporter at NewsChannel 5 in Nashville, cautioned people on social media that the leak only contained a small portion of the total documents written by the shooter, saying his sources who read the entire document called the leak "extremely misleading."
"Multiple sources have told me that the selective leak of three pages of the #CovenantSchool shooting 'manifesto' is EXTREMELY misleading. People who have read the whole thing say 'there’s something in there for everybody.' Another, 'She hated everybody,'” Williams said. "This is why journalism organizations have argued for the release of the shooter’s writings so the conversation can be based on facts, not someone’s spin."
A chancery court ruled in May that the 100 Covenant families had the right to intervene in the case to stop the release of those documents. The families have sought to keep the records from reaching the public.
According to the Associated Press, the families submitted declarations to the court laying out in detail what their children have gone through since the March 27 shooting, Osborne said. They also filed a report from an expert on childhood trauma from mass shootings. That evidence shows “the release of documents will only aggravate and grow their psychological harm,” he said.
"Parents and families came together to prevent this exact moment from happening, to prevent that revictimizing of our children, and to prevent further trauma to our families because we knew that these writings, these thoughts, were heinous... that they were evil," Covenant School parent Brent Leatherwood said during a press conference on Monday evening, calling the person who released the images a "viper."
Leatherwood also previously served as the executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party and was elected as the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2022.
Leatherwood did not confirm if the images leaked on Monday were similar to the ones that Covenant parents saw, saying he believes the person who leaked the images was a member of the law enforcement community. He called the incident a "gut punch."
"The damage done today is already significant, and I'm worried it's only going to grow," he said. "I believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg. We don't want our children to someday read this stuff and whatever else may be there. They are connected by one thing: They are evil."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.