(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) 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 Christian elementary school shooting that happened on Monday in Nashville, Tennessee.
Police said that a 28-year-old woman who identified as a “transgender man” killed three 9-year-old children and three adults at The Covenant School, which is connected to the conservative evangelical Covenant Presbyterian Church. Authorities also stated that the shooter executed a “targeted attack” and left behind a “manifesto.”
Hawley said that the reason why the tragedy happened is that the shooter had a specific desire to harm Christians, the Daily Wire reported.
“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.”
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
He also added that federal law criminalizes acts of violence based on their actual or perceived “religion.” Police detectives even say that they suspected why the shooter targeted this specific school is that she had “some resentment” for having to attend it.
“I urge you to immediately open an investigation into this shooting as a federal hate crime,” Hawley added.
“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.”
The shooter executed her attack the same week the Trans Radical Activist Network called for a “day of vengeance.”
The students who were killed in the shooting were Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all 9 years old. The school’s 60-year-old principal, Dr. Katherine Koonce, and 61-year-old staffers Cynthia Peak and Mike Hill were also killed.
