On Tuesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) called on FBI Director Christopher Wray and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to open a federal hate crime investigation into the Monday shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee.
The shooter was a 28-year-old woman who identified as a transgender man. She killed six people, including three children, before being shot and killed by police.
Police say the tragedy was a “targeted attack” and that the shooter was a former student of the private Christian school, Covenant School. The attack also took place just days before a planned “Day of Vengeance” by transgender activists in Washington, D.C., for March 31-April 2 which has been raising money for firearm training for trans individuals.
“Yesterday the nation witnessed the vicious murder of small schoolchildren in Nashville, Tennessee,” Hawley wrote in a letter to the senior Biden administration officials. “It is commonplace to call such horrors ‘senseless violence.’ But properly speaking, that is false. Police report that the attack here was ‘targeted’ — targeted, that is, against Christians.”
“Federal law explicitly criminalizes acts of violence against individuals based on religious affiliation as hate crimes,” Hawley noted. “According to Nashville law enforcement, [the shooter’s] attack was both premeditated and ‘targeted’ against this Christian school, its students and employees.”
Hawley then discussed the discovery of the shooter’s manifesto and maps of the school detailing how the shooting was going to take place. He noted that authorities said that the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to the school.”
“I urge you to immediately open an investigation into this shooting as a federal hate crime,” Hawley concluded. “The full resources of the federal government must be brought to bear to determine how this crime occurred, and who may have influenced the deranged shooter to carry out these horrific crimes. Hate that leads to violence must be condemned. And hate crimes must be prosecuted.”
I am calling on FBI Director Wray and Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas to open a federal hate crime investigation into the massacre in Nashville – targeting a Christian school ???? pic.twitter.com/IvzrJUY2ZH
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 28, 2023
