On March 27, a gunman opened fire at the Covenant School in Nashville, TN, killing three nine-year-old students and three staff members. At the time, Megyn noted “one sick person” (she has a policy of not naming the shooters in these situations) perpetrated the tragedy.
In the months since, little more has been learned about the motive of the shooter – who was killed by police officers at the scene – because the writings and manifesto found in the wake of the tragedy were never released. On Monday, Steven Crowder published photographs of three pages of what is believed to be the manifesto that he said was obtained through law enforcement sources.
On Tuesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Andy Ngo, a senior editor at The Post Millennial who has reviewed the excerpt, to discuss what was written and why it is important for the public to be able to read it.
[Editor’s Note: You can learn more about Megyn’s position on preferred pronouns here.]
The Manifesto
As Megyn explained, it is “very unusual” for the writings of mass shooters to not be released in the wake of the crime. “As disturbing as it might be – and as they always are, they’re always deranged rantings – they release them because the public has a right to know,” she shared. “They can provide a window into, usually, madness and potentially motivation.”
In this case, it was known that law enforcement had found writings believed to belong to the gunman, but they were never made public. While Crowder has not publicly revealed his sources, Megyn said it is rumored to have come from someone in the local law enforcement in Nashville, “who got fed up with this hiding of the manifesto and released three pages of it to him.”
The three handwritten pages Crowder posted online have since been confirmed as authentic and illustrate the dark inner world of the shooter, who was reportedly a biological female transitioning to male. On a page dated February 3, 2023 – just weeks before the shooting – she derides the perceived affluence of the “little crackers” at the school “with their white privlages [sic].”
There is anti-white sentiment throughout the excerpt, though the shooter was white and previously attended Covenant School. “What they show is there is a pathological grievance ideology that is running through… a hatred of white people, a resentment against their perceived wealth and the privileges they have,” Ngo noted. “These are hateful ramblings against children.”
There is also a page titled “Death Day” and another that meticulously outlines the shooter’s plan for the day of the attack. It starts with “get dressed” at 7am and ends with “Let massacre begin Time2die XXX.” Ngo found the timeline particularly disturbing. “The way they did it was so calm,” he said. “I don’t even know if this person realized they were planning a terrorist attack. It was like just another thing to do on the day.”
‘This Is Newsworthy’
While Ngo noted that the families of some of the victims have asked for the manifesto to remain private, many in law enforcement have called for its release. Megyn agrees. “My heart goes out to the parents – no one has any desire to cause them any more pain,” she said. “But we do need to understand exactly what infected this person’s mind… and it is not for the FBI to protect us from the horrors of this writing.”
Megyn said it was right of Crowder to publish it and said any legitimate news organization should have done the same. “This is newsworthy and the study of it could actually potentially lead to our ability to understand and hopefully prevent another one of these things,” she concluded. “How dare any of these people tell us we don’t get to know… It’s infuriating.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Ngo by tuning in to episode 664 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.