March 27, 2024, marked the one-year anniversary of the tragic Covenant School shooting which left three children and three adult staff members dead. The event captured international attention and drove weeks of protests and demonstrations in and around the Tennessee Capitol calling for tougher gun control laws and increased safety measures for schools.
Legal battles persist over whether police files containing details of the shooter’s possible motive, and grizzly minutia of this tragedy should be released to the public. Both sides to this debate present compelling arguments. Should the privacy concerns of the victims of this mass shooting and their families be respected? Would the release of this information lead somehow to increased public awareness of the factors that led to the shooting, and thus serve as an aid in the prevention of future such horrific crimes?
Within weeks following the shooting the Tennessee General Assembly enacted a tough, new statute aimed at criminalizing certain forms of speech which could be construed as a threat of mass violence against school employees.
The “Tennessee Threat of Mass Violence Statute” makes it a crime to utter a threat “which a reasonable person would conclude” could lead to the serious bodily injury of two or more persons on school property. A person commits this criminal offense by communicating such a threat directly or indirectly, verbally, in writing, or through the use of any internet protocol, social media post, text message, group chat or “other recognized means of conveying information.
Sounds justifiable in light of today’s increased threat of school mass shootings, right?
In recent weeks four families have come to our law office seeking legal representation for their child over the enforcement of this new criminal statute. In each case, their child was summarily suspended and turned over to legal authorities for making what, by any interpretation, was a joking or careless remark to a fellow classmate about school staff or personnel. None of these children seriously contemplated carrying out an act of mass violence. Their remarks were, at worst, an exercise of poor judgment, and were typical of the kinds of banter middle school-age children so often utter to vent their frustration over receiving a low score on an assignment or some other perceived unfair treatment.
Despite the innocuous nature of their utterance, these children, many of whom were honor roll students, were strip searched, placed under house arrest, consigned to alternative school, ordered to undergo counseling and therapy, and denied of many basic privileges. The District Attorney demanded they be placed on six months of probation and submit to strict monitoring and regular reporting to an assigned case worker. They were ostracized by their peers, their academic records forever tarnished. Several forfeited their opportunity to participate in sports. Their alleged “criminal” activity will have to be disclosed as a part of their application in the future to any college or university.
It is a scary thought that someone could go to jail for posting a comment on the Internet. All of us have witnessed adults who resort to social media as a convenient medium for venting their fears and frustrations. We cannot criminalize every instance of childish behavior, particularly in light of the propensity of a school-age child to post comments they would never if applying a filter of mature judgment.
The Covenant School shooting was by anyone’s account a horrific event. As we mourn this tragic loss of innocent life, we must strive at the same time to not subject the most vulnerable in our society to an overreach in the law as a means of staving off future school tragedies.
Larry L. Crain Crain Law Group, PLLC, www.crainlaw.legal
