Police Speculation and Contagion Fears
Balancing the public's desire to know and the potential for harm is not easy.
NBC News (“Fear pervades Tennessee’s trans community amid focus on Nashville shooter’s gender identity“):
Shortly after news broke Monday of a fatal shooting at a private Christian Nashville elementary school, police said the suspect was transgender. This detail, according to trans people in the state, has poured fuel on an already combustive environment that has led many of them to fear for their safety.
Police say Audrey Hale, who was killed by responding officers, fatally shot three 9-year-old students and three staffers at The Covenant School. Though police have said there is no known motive for the shooting, some conservatives have blamed the shooting on the suspect’s gender identity.
Within 10 minutes of police saying that the suspect was transgender, the hashtag #TransTerrorism trended on Twitter. Around the same time, Republican lawmakers — including Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and conservative firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. — insinuated in social media posts that the shooter’s gender identity played a role in the shooting. And by Tuesday morning, the cover of the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post read: “Transgender killer targets Christian school.”
“We are terrified for the LGBTQ community here,” Kim Spoon, a trans activist based in Knoxville, Tennessee, said. “More blood’s going to be shed, and it’s not going to be shed in a school.”
[…]
During a press conference Tuesday, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said a motive for the shooting was still unknown. The day prior, however, his response when asked if Hale’s identity was connected to the motive left the door open to speculation.
“There is some theory to that,” Drake said. “We’re investigating all the leads.”
[…]
Bill Campbell, the headmaster of The Covenant School from 2004 to 2008, said Hale attended the school as a child in 2005 and 2006 and identified as female during that time. As an adult, though, it appears Hale may not have identified as female. Hale’s LinkedIn page, which has since been removed, states that Hale used “he” and “him” pronouns. And a friend of Hale’s, Averianna Patton, who said Hale messaged her shortly before the shooting, said Hale signed the message “Aubrey (Aiden),” using Hale’s given name along with a traditionally male name.
Aislinn Bailey, the acting president of Tri-Cities Transgender, a trans-led support and advocacy group based in Johnson City, Tennessee, said her initial reaction to news that the suspect was transgender was fear.
“I knew that as soon as anyone mentioned that, it was immediately going to become the center focus instead of what should be the focus, and that’s gun violence in this country,” Bailey said.
She condemned the choice by police to release information about the suspect’s gender identity when they did not appear certain about it.
“I think it was unethical and highly suspect that information like that, which they had to have known could cause backlash on the trans community — releasing information like that without it being verified, that’s unconscionable as far as I’m concerned,” Bailey said.
She added, “We were already fearing for our lives. Now, it’s even worse.”
Let’s dispense with the obvious: trans individuals are much more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators of it; it’s outrageous for politicians to fan the flames of fear; and nobody should target trans individuals in response to this incident.
It’s quite reasonable, then, to be angry at Vance and, especially, Taylor Greene for their responses. But the police chief? To the extent it’s necessary for him to hold a press conference in the aftermath of tragedy, his conduct strikes me as perfectly appropriate.
It’s rather customary to provide the demographic details of criminal suspects. Being trans is such a detail. He initially identified Hale as a woman but later clarified that Hale used he/him pronouns. That seems like information reporters would need to write their stories.
When asked the perfectly reasonable question as to whether the shooter’s gender identity was a motivation for the shooter, the chief quite reasonably said that it was a theory that would be investigated. Given that Hale had been a student at a fundamentalist school, which is almost certainly vehemently anti-trans, that would seem prudent.
We now have reports that Hale was under medical care for an unspecified emotional disorder. And yet had somehow managed to purchase seven firearms, including at least two assault-style rifles, from five different local gun stores “recently.”
Rather obviously, easy access to firearms—especially by people known to be mentally unstable—is more pertinent public policy question than the shooter’s gender identity. But, surely, it’s a relevant fact in the particular case.
That it’s possible that unhinged people will use this as an excuse to commit violence against trans people is a sad reality. It seems unreasonable to ignore the elephant in the room to prevent that possibility.
What exactly is “the elephant in the room” we’re supposed to be paying attention to?
This certainly reads like it’s somehow a bigger priority to find fault with Aislinn Bailey, the acting president of Tri-Cities Transgender, who may or may not have overreacted, than to condemn Senator Hawley and Representative Greene for their eliminationist rhetoric.
OK, then.
Yeah, let’s bitch about the lefties who are taking it too far. How can we ever take them seriously?
@Stormy Dragon: The easy access to guns. Sweet Jesus, are you constantly ready to jump on him for any perceived slight even though context clues make it completely obvious? I’ll admit I can be kind of a dick about some of my hobby horses, but…damn.
Also, James, mental health problems were eliminated as a screening criteria by, guess who.
@Stormy Dragon: Yeah. I was wondering about how reasonable and important it was to reveal the pronoun information while it was still in the speculation stage. I still wonder even after it moved out of that stage, myself. Then again, I’m not very good at this dog whistling stuff.
@drj: not from James though it seems. More from the excerpt from the local reporting. About the only thing I can see is adding words to the chief’s statement to make it more like what a response from a more media savy person would say than what was said. Or, maybe I am misreading.
@Thomm:
How is the shooter’s gender identity relevant to the easy access to guns?
@drj: I have had a policy, going back to pretty close to the founding of the blog 20 years ago, to avoid “Known Idiot Says Something Stupid” posts. MGT is a known lunatic. I don’t find it worth my time to comment on that fact other than in passing.
The whole tone of the NBC report, starting with the headline, is the notion that the shooter’s transgender identity should not have been disclosed because it further stokes anti-trans sentiment. It seems a weird take to me.
@Thomm: I’m not connecting ignoring easy access to guns to preventing unhinged people from violence against trans people. Given that violence against trans people (which we are admitting will be sad–and very white of us to admit, too 🙁 ) is the fear, it seems to me that there’s another elephant in the room beyond easy access to guns- although easy access to guns makes violence against people in general much easier.
I really don’t care if we are talking about a white supremacist. like Rittenhouse, or a transgender.
We need to keep guns out of he hands of people that are ill-equipped for the responsibility of owning a machine designed specifically to kill people.
We will never be perfect, but we can be a damn sight better than we currently are.
BTW – did you know that Ted Cruz had a role in Heller? The case at the heart of mis-interpreting the 2nd. Makes perfect sense…
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/ted-cruz-supreme-court-conservative-213497/
What I’d like to know is whether the therapist treating Hale noticed any signs of homicidal ideation. If so, wouldn’t the therapist be required to reveal that to authorities to forestall any violence?
This wasn’t an impulse shooting. Hale planned this carefully.
@James Joyner:
Hm. This seems an odd take on the NBC article. The article purports to report on the transgender and drag communities’ fears about transphobic and antigay conservatives using preliminary information/speculation about shooters’ identity and motives to possibly stoke further violence and attacks against trans and LGBT people. Naturally, that will include a quote or two from individuals who are wary about the consequences of related disclosures.
What about that is a weird “tone?” It’s just the author of the article reporting what he was told by the subjects of the reporting.
What else should the article have done? Sought out quotes from trans people and drag queens in Tennessee who agree with the right’s attacks on them, to satisfy those who fetishize fence-sitting, performative bothsidesism, and false equivalencies?
It was widely reported that in the early days of AIDS a lot of the health and science people downplayed the association with gays. They did so because they feared the predictable response from some conservatives would inhibit research and treatment. Were they correct to suppress that information? I feel they were.
Should the police chief have suppressed the possible trans identity? He said he wasn’t speculating on motive pending investigation, but some people predictably seized on this as motive, so I think he should have let it lie, at least for a bit. Do I feel strongly that he did bad? No. I don’t see any ill intent.
But there is a common thread that runs through AIDS, this situation, and so much else. Haters gonna hate.
The late, great Stephen Jay Gould liked to talk about the old adage properly expressed as “the exception that proofs the rule” as in proof test. An edge case that properly examined conforms to the rule. This may be such for the common thread that it’s almost always young, white, males. Are the haters going to hate on them?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
While it is an interesting theoretical question, it has no practical effect. If a shooter (or people who know the shooter) has any web presence at all, this information will be widely circulating and widely discussed within minutes of the shooter being even tentatively identified. The New York Times or NBC can’t stop that.
@CSK:
No, because almost everybody has homicidal ideation: https://web.archive.org/web/20090704085156/http://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2005/duntleyj48072/duntleyj48072.pdf
@James Joyner:
No weirder than our failure to identify Domestic Terrorists, as such.
Which is to say, yeah, weird.
@Stormy Dragon:
That doesn’t have anything to do with a therapist’s “duty to report.”
@CSK:
That’s what I’m saying: there is no duty to report homicidal ideation, because absent some additional evidence that it’s gone beyond mere ideation, they’d be reporting 76-91% of their patients. Homicidal ideation isn’t a useful predictor of homicidal behavior
Yesterday WAPO did yeoman’s work with a long story on how AR-15 clones became so popular and so common. In an Editorial Board column today they note that story was only top of the page briefly before being displace by the Nashville shooting, with not one, but two ARs. They conclude,
Unfortunately, being the WAPO editorial board, they had no useful suggestion except a magazine size ban. They don’t mention it, but Warren Burger said some years ago,
A few Blue justices might have a more salutary effect than magazine size.
I find it striking that conservatives are so sensitive to any change in our culture but utterly incapable of seeing what the gun culture they helped create is doing to us. Some years ago Reynolds saw culture change as the long term solution. I don’t recall he’s mentioned that lately. Worrying about mass shootings is kind of a white privilege thing. The bulk of the dead are still handgun homicides and suicides. I hope we won’t focus entirely on pretend assault rifles and lose sight of the larger problem.
@Stormy Dragon:
There is a duty to report if the ideation reaches a certain point.
There is no bright line. Therapists have a duty to report if they think the pt is a risk for harming someone. Where you draw the line between occasionally thinking about killing someone and thinking they will actually carry it out is not clear.
As to the trans issue it was on her public media pages. It was going to come out anyway so may as well report it.
Steve
@CSK:
Tennessee has a mandated reporter law and it covers children and vulnerable adults. Basically if a mandated reporter becomes aware that an individual is of danger to themselves or others, they need to report.
Summary below.
http://4e5ae7d17e.nxcli.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Tennessee_upd-2018.pdf
As far as disclosure of the perpetrators sexual identity. I generally believe that it is good practice to release any objective information regarding a perpetrator to the public, unless general knowledge of that info could result in complicating the resolution of the case. To do other wise is to invite speculation and suspicion as to why some known fact wasn’t disclosed.
In the case of the Nashville shooter, the sexual ID, would have become known within hours, if not minutes of the shooters name being released. Friends, acquaintances would have outed her.
@CSK: At least under California law, that “certain point” is a serious planned threat, with meand and identified victims. Venting, offhand comments, and unfocused or generalized ranting is typically not enough. Law enforcement can’t really take action against someone for mere “ideation.”
Not sure about the exact sprcifics in other states, as my psychology masters was earned in California. But California tends to lead the way, as it is more difficult to get licensed here than elsewhere.
@steve:
Yes there is. As someone actually trained in psychotherapy, these laws tend to have specific tests. They are not just a vague “This client is a weirdo who might or might not harm someone.” It is more like “This client conveyed a serious, plausible threat against an identifiable victim and has means and opportunity to carry it out.”
Everyone who gets an advanced degree in a psychology field takes a whole Law and Ethics course that details these lines. It’s more complicated than laypeople think. Because if you breach confidentiality — to which therapy clients are legally entitled — when you should not have, your client has a right to sue you and say, “I was just venting/ranting, there was no actual threat to anyone.” And you risk being stripped of your license.
You can’t just run around reporting everyone who comes to you and says something untoward. Specific lines must be crossed before you can legally breach confidentiality and start disclosing protected health information to law enforcement. Did client’s so-called threat meet test A? If yes, move on to test B. If yes, onto test C. If yes, then report.
Have you ever met a Presbyterian? Or did you just rush to that assumption based on it being a Christian school? Although granted the Temperance movement is said to have started by a woman praying in a Presbyterian church. And Janet “Jenny” Geddes throwing her stool at the minister’s head is said to have sparked the English Civil War.
Attack is inconvenient for the Trans community with their upcoming “Day of Vengeance” on Saturday. But you can’t declare that someone is 100% trans if the thought ever crossed their mind and then try to disavow someone who may have latched on to the identity out of mental desperateness.
@JKB:
Cowardly xenophobe says what?
The police chief said that family members as well as a mall were targeted.
@JKB:
“Historically-depraved monsters, mass murderers, and serial killers Tim McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Charles Whitman, John Wayne Gacy, Vladimir Putin, Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, Patrick Wood Crusius, Ethan Crumbley, Dylan Roof, Jared Loughner, James Hubert, Danny Rolling, Gary Ridgway, Josef Stalin, Donald Harvey, Stephen Paddock, Benito Mussolini, David Berkowitz, Jim Jones, Dennis Rader, Adam Lanza, George Hennard, and Devin Patrick Kelly et al are inconvenient for the white male community, given their voting preference for a party that loves to patholgogize marginalized identities and concern troll about black criminality.”*
*File under ‘things you’ll never hear conservatives, Republicans, and Trump’s MAGA extremists say.’
@CSK:
There is also reporting that the Principal ran directly at the assailant.
https://sports.yahoo.com/nashville-school-head-katherine-koonce-151710718.html
If only Republicans had one iota of the bravery she showed.
@gVOR08:
Elections have consequences. That ship sailed with the massively stupid and sexist Emailghazigatepalooza National Bitch Hunt, in which 90%+ of black voters voted for the competent Email Lady but certain other demographics screwed up at the ballot box yet again and gave the nuclear codes to an unqualified, unfit, pathological lying, crotchgrabbing pervert and Putin-puppet named Trump.
She warned us.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
Or the Uvalde police.
These colors don’t run (into the building to save kids being shot at). #BlueLivesMatter
@JKB:
From a NYT report:
That sounds pretty fundamentalist to me.
@JKB:
Douche-fuqs like JKB show their ignorance when they comment.
In 2022 over 60 Transgenders lost their lives. So far this year, over a dozen.
There are currently over 100 bills banning gender affirming care.
Just last month a columnist for the Daily Caller, Michael Knowles, called for the eradication of the very idea of transgenderism. The eradication of transgenderism necessarily means the eradication of transgender people.
You can sense the hate seething from JKB, even though I bet he has never met…you know…an actual transgender person…just because the people who tell him what to think have told him to think that way.
Vengeance means retribution. These people are certainly due some retribution against people like JKB who would deny their very right to exist.
@CSK: I read this AM that a friend of Hale’s contacted police before the shooting because they were worried. Not sure how accurate that report is.
@James Joyner:
“Only Democrats/liberals have agency and are therefore the only people who ought to be blamed, regardless of the triviality of their offense and regardless of who has actual political power.”
@CSK: Reporting homicidal ideation varies state by state, so I’m skeptical about how preventative laws in TN would be.
@MarkedMan: Clearly, you and I use the internet differently.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The friend was Averianna Patton, a member of the basketball team she and Hale played for in high school.
Headline seems more definitive than warranted by the body of the article, but suggestion that the “emotional disorder” mentioned was grief over the recent death of a romantic partner:
Nashville school shooting – latest: Audrey Hale’s post about partner’s death revealed as motive still unknown
@JKB:
I recommend that you stay inside that day, with your doors locked.
It is unlikely that someone would decide they are trans because of mental illness, excluding gender dysphoria*. It is far more likely that raised in a society where they cannot express themselves and are constantly hiding and even denying it to themselves has resulted in stresses that cause mental illness. The closet is incredibly toxic. It’s why suicide rates among queer kids are so high, and why they are dropping among the more accepted flavors of queer.
And, very occasionally, that leads to violence directed outwards. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.
It’s people like you who create this.
So, when they come for vengeance, stay inside with your doors and windows locked.
——
*: given that not all trans people apparently experience gender dysphoria, it’s possible that even that is a consequence rather than a cause.
@Stormy Dragon: Why do you hate elephants?
@Gustopher:
The elephants know what they did!
@Thomm:
That ends up being a more complicated up issue than it seems on the surface, and you need to balance letting mentally ill people have guns with discouraging gun owners from seeking care for mental illness.
The fact that there are more guns than people in this country should also be a factor in that calculation.
There are lots of mental illnesses where the person is not a threat to themselves or others, and where access to guns should not be prohibited. My anxiety disorder, for instance, is just kind of annoying rather than potentially dangerous.
A blanket “no guns for the mentally ill” is likely to do more harm than good, and deprive people of their rights. It needs to be handled on a more case by case basis, or at least with more nuance than any-and-all mental illness.
(As Proud Boys and other Nazis gain prominence, I am more wary of gun restrictions, because they already have guns, and we are just preventing ourselves from arming when needed. I opposed the arms embargo in Bosnia back in the 90s for similar reasons.)
@drj:
I spend the first two paragraphs of my commentary noting that MTG and company are awful, even though it’s manifestly obvious that they are, so that I can get at the thing that the headline and subhed of the post should have signaled that it’s actually about. “Trump said something outrageous again!” and “MTG said something evil again!” are just not interesting blog fodder, especially not since I’ve gone away from InstaPundit-style one line posts.
According to CNN, the police chief in Nashville said there were no problems at home or with the school that have surfaced so far.
@James Joyner: The article you quote does something similar.
By mentioning, but not quoting, the hateful posts, they act like the hateful shit these assholes spew is just a force of nature, rather than a deliberate choice.
There’s a balance between providing a platform for their hate and eliding over them completely. Given the size of the OTB platform, I think you often strike the wrong balance.
And as far as the incessant and repetitive nature of the awfulness coming out from the right not feeling fresh… I think a regular “two minutes of hate” feature where we get to mock and be performatively outraged by the right wing hate speech would be very popular. We love that stuff. We’re a bunch of rabid weasels. Granted, you might not want to see that frenzy of rabid weasels.
““MTG said something evil again!” are just not interesting blog fodder…”
Sure. But the discussion here is about whether or not the police should have shared the information about the suspect’s gender identity when they did. The answer to that question is predicated, in part, on the costs and benefits of doing so. A very real cost of that action is the hate, anger, and violence that may be directed towards the trans community as a result of all that has transpired around the shooting. So it seems pretty important to discuss the statements of prominent voices and their potential effects.
You disagree with the position that the police should not have offered the suspect’s gender identity… and that is much easier to do when you choose to ignore the reasons why people hold that position. A major reason is someone like MTG.
DK- You probably know more about it than I do now, but I was in mental health in the first part of my career. I probably filled out more 302 papers, hundreds, (involuntary commitment papers) than 98% of the people who work in mental health. In my current position I have occasion to talk over the issue with our chair of psychiatry occasionally. Not sure I am exactly a layman.
In PA the standard is intent to harm yourself or someone else. While there may be a series of questions to which you must all answer yes before reporting someone, I dont think it is always that clear when you answer yes. It certainly was not when it came to commitments and my fellow chair complains it is not for him when faced with this. All that said, maybe he is a whiner and you have better criteria so will defer to you. I really didnt mean to imply it was arbitrary or that is was done just for ideation but rather that some mental health professionals have found it a difficult judgment.
Steve
I accept the argument that the shooters gender identity was information that was publicly available and that the police chief’s disclosure of it probably avoided any argument of “they are covering it up!”
That still puts us in a crappy place, of course. But maybe we can use this opportunity. To describe how difficult it is to be in the closet, how oppressive it is, how all that stress leads to depression and sometimes suicide. A shooting spree like this is a kind of suicide, to my mind.
I can tell you with 100% certainty that myself and my Trans friends are shitting themselves right now. I am actively terrified for myself and my friends. The police MASSIVELY screwed this up by disclosing that the attacker may be Trans. Not only the disclosure at this time, but also the method of disclosure. By disclosing that the attacker might be Trans, but that the motive is unknown allowed the right wing tabloids and bad actors to paint the motive as being because a Trans person hate crimed a church school. Reliable, normal news organizations delayed for hours reporting on the Trans angle because it was vague. This allowed the right wing to seize the narrative and doom us.
https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/right-wing-rushes-to-demonize-trans-community-in-wake-of-shooting
As for “Trans Day of Vengeance”, I’ll let you in on a secret, some of this stuff has been half joked about for years. Trans Day of Wrath, Wrath Month (July, comes after Pride), these are things we use cause we’re more or less powerless. Sick of being murdered, sick of being constantly misgendered, sick of constantly being told “your soooo brave”. This is the jokes of the powerless and angry getting used against us.
This year, in three months, something like 500ish bills have been proposed restricting the rights of Trans people. TN passed a drag ban that is so vague, in my opinion, it criminalizes being Trans around kids. The Neo-Confederate states are working overtime on their Trans genocide plans. We just want to live.
I’ll make this offer again, I’m happy to talk to anyone who wants to hear a story about being Trans. I’m happy to set up a zoom call with our hosts help. I’ll even see if I can get a couple other Trans people to join us.
@Beth:
Right after every shooting, as soon as the shooter has been identified, there is a frenzy of people searching online for any information about them. Given that he/him pronouns were used in a LinkedIn bio, it would have been known within an hour of the name of the shooter being released.
I understand the concern, but I think it’s unworkable.
The fact that there is apparently a manifesto, and we haven’t gotten a summary of anything in it that might indicate motive is very bad. Especially with “quotes” from it circulating online that are either selectively leaked or made up bullshit.
I think the error is not enough information rather than too much.
They should release the manifesto or a summary, unless that is likely to inflame things worse or they have reason to believe it is filled with lies (perhaps the shooter hated trans people and was trying to create a backlash, like the Bugaboo Boneheads trying to spark a race war… the only record of them being trans is recent, I believe).
I’m sorry. It’s terrifying. I’m not as scared as you, but I know the rest of the queer folks will be targeted next, so I expect that I’ll get there.
I’m sorry that you have to be brave, and that you have to be subjected to bad grammar. Both are awful.
I don’t think we know how to fight against a radicalized, bigoted government. If you look back at what worked in the civil rights era, you will see that a lot of that level of civil disobedience has been criminalized further and rendered impotent. Marches aren’t covered on TV unless someone sets fire to a CVS or something and then the bigot class uses that to discredit the entire movement by repeating the worst images over and over (similar to Howard Dean’s scream in 2004, taken out of context and shown thousands of times with different context with a deliberate intent of destroying the man and his message, but now turned against the most vulnerable).
If we don’t figure out how to fight it, it’s going to be very bad. Or should we just be focusing on the short term and helping people get out of these communities?
I’m in Seattle. There’s nothing to fight here. That’s good, but also a little disappointing because I’m angry and scared and want to do something.
You can’t stop people from speculating, especially the political hobbyists. And part of it is that it’s normal for people to engage in that sort of cognitive pattern matching and be overconfident of such judgments.
But we really should be more circumspect. You look at something like the Pulse Nightclub shooting, and many of the early assumptions proved to be very wrong.
@Gustopher:
This is my view as well. You can’t stop speculation, and you can’t hide something as public as a person’s gender. The best course is – in almost all cases – to release accurate information as soon as possible so that facts have a chance.
And in shootings like this, there is always an industry of people engaging in online archaeology to try to divine motivations. The only weapon against that is actual relevant facts.
I would also favor more transparency. The second people know who it is they will be on social media. They will know the person is trans. If the police or media dont report that it will be seen as a cover up. Speculation will be awful. I think the police could have handled it a little bit better and just said they had no idea about motivation and would investigate.
There will still be a dedicated group who will try to attack trans people over this but among those inclined to be fair the police being open at the beginning will add legitimacy when they report their findings.
Steve
The church attached to the school had a child molester during the period when the shooter attended the school.
https://www.courthousenews.com/church-accused-of-covering-for-molester/
Note the access to the school.
I have seen some reports that John Perry, the molester in question was a founding member of the church, and there are claims that he had a “safe house” for children whose parents were having problems, but haven’t found semi-reputable confirmation. (The safe house is mentioned in the story about the lawsuit, but also with things like “cult-like”, so I take that with a grain of salt)
The molestation reports were brought up in 2015, via BuzzFeed
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/andrewkaczynski/co-author-of-mike-huckabee-books-was-accused-of-child-molest
They were more interested in the fact that Perry was the coauthor of Mike Huckabee’s book, and Roy Moore’s book, but they reference multiple lawsuits. If you’re getting named in multiple suits for molesting children, I think there’s a good chance it is true.
John Perry’s very detailed Amazon Author profile does not mention that he molests children, which I guess is to be expected. I can see why someone would downplay it (his publicist earned their pay that day). Despite his many religious books, the profile also skips over his involvement with Covenant Presbyterian, which seems like a curious omission if he was a church officer.
Anyway, since the lack of information about what is in the manifesto invites speculation on motive, I speculate that it is being held back while Church and School officials get their little ducks in a row, as the manifesto explicitly mentions that the shooter was molested at the school, that the school didn’t protect them, that the family members they had tentatively targeted didn’t protect them, and the mall they wanted to target had a bookstore that sold the molester’s book.
My speculation falls apart a bit with the mall. There may have been another grievance, malls are awful.
(Until we have more information on the shooter, I feel uncomfortable using gendered pronouns. The Club Q shooter claimed afterwards to be non-binary in what is almost certainly trolling — his friends say he never used they/them pronouns or said anything about being non-binary — and I have no idea whether this shooter is genuinely trans)
@Gustopher: @Kazzy: The NBC News story linked to the tweets in question. I tend to quote sans links because so many news organizations stuff their reports with annoying internal links for search optimization purposes. Regardless, neither the NBC story nor mine ignored the reaction of MTG and company; indeed, I explicitly condemn it before getting to the matter at hand.
As others have noted, people were going to instantly figure out the shooter was trans the same way police did: by Googling the name. And, frankly, I would be shocked to learn that her gender identity and her experiences at the fundamentalist Christian school she shot up—killing the pastor’s daughter, no less—are not linked to the shooting.
@Stormy Dragon:
Homicidal ideation. Wow I never knew there was a term to describe the feeling I get when I want to choke the living daylights out of our central IT department.
Thank you!
@gVOR08:
The 180 degrees about face on so many long standing precedents would argue that it’s not so much they are in any way shape or form “sensitive to any change”. Quite the opposite. Todays GOP are reactionary and anything but “conservatives”.