Tennessee Lawsuit Considers What Public Should Learn About a Massacre

An ongoing lawsuit in Tennessee could decide whether the families of school shooting victims have a right to control what the public learns about a massacre, Travis Loller reports for the Associated Press. Grieving parents and fellow classmates of the three children and three adults who were killed at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville are arguing against a coalition that includes news organizations, a gun rights group and a state senator over what should be done with the roughly 20 journals, a suicide note and a memoir, that the killer left behind.

Metro Nashville government attorneys have said the records can be made public, but only after the investigation is officially closed, which could take months. The groups seeking the documents say the case is essentially over since the shooter was killed by police and that the records should be immediately released. The families are seeking to keep the police records from ever seeing the light of day, arguing that “the release of documents will only aggravate and grow their psychological harm,” according to one of their attorneys.