NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A police report released Wednesday reveals that the individual responsible for the 2023 Nashville elementary school attack, which resulted in the deaths of six people, including three children, had been meticulously planning the assault for years while concealing mental health struggles from family and doctors.

The comprehensive investigative case summary, nearly 50 pages long, provides long-sought-after details of The Covenant School shooting and highlights the extensive measures the shooter undertook to research and orchestrate a massacre at the Christian institution, all while avoiding intervention from mental health professionals.

The decision to release the shooter’s writings ignited a legal dispute. Some of the documents have been leaked, and although Wednesday’s report concludes the Nashville Police investigation into the March 2023 shooting, the debate over what additional information should be disclosed — regarding this attack and others — persists.

Early in the investigation, police suggested the shooter had crafted a “manifesto” outlining motives and intentions. However, the 28-year-old shooter, Audrey Hale, left behind “a collection of notebooks, art composition books, and media files ″ documenting plans and preparations for the attack, as well as personal life events and other motivations, according to police. Hale, who was a former student of Covenant, was killed by police.

Hale aimed to kill at least 40 individuals, aspiring to inspire books, documentaries, and films, hoping the weapons would be displayed in museums and his bedroom preserved as a memorial, police revealed.

Though Hale sometimes used male pronouns, the police report employs female pronouns, referencing a state law definition of “sex” as “determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth.” Police stated that Hale identified as male.

The report acknowledges speculation but dismisses the idea that Hale’s mental health providers could be criminally liable for not intervening.

Hale’s parents and therapist had been concerned about his mental health for years. Psychological assessments conducted by Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2019 and 2021 concluded Hale wasn’t suffering from psychosis and recommended outpatient treatment.

“She had sufficient experience with the mental healthcare system to know which topics to avoid with her providers and how to convince them that her documented issues with homicidal and suicidal ideations were well in her past,” it states.

As Hale’s parents and therapists grew more concerned, Hale became increasingly manipulative, police found. At one point, Hale even considered killing his mother to prevent discovery, despite having a “strong emotional attachment” to her, the report notes.

Hale avoided using credit or debit cards for expenses related to the attack, aware that his mother could access the accounts. Additionally, Hale often removed attack-related material from his computer and cellphone to prevent his mother from discovering it, police stated.

Hale chose The Covenant School for several reasons, police indicated. He believed he would not be overpowered by the staff and students there. He anticipated gaining notoriety for attacking a Christian school and had fond memories of attending the school.

“Hale often mentioned that her time at The Covenant was the happiest period of her childhood education,” police documented.

Police dismissed theories about racial, religious, or economic motivations in the shooting, stating that “none of those motives influenced her decision to attack The Covenant,” even though Hale “expressed anger over these topics at times in her writings.”

The report indicates that Hale researched other potential shooting locations, including busy roads and shopping centers.

As early as 2018, Hale was planning an attack on Creswell Middle, a Nashville public school she attended after Covenant. Hale developed detailed plans, including a timeline. However, by March 2020, she began to have doubts. Most of Creswell’s students were Black, and Hale was concerned about being labeled a racist, although she had “no qualms about killing anyone regardless of specific demographic categories,” police wrote.

The report notes that Covenant had prepared for a potential school shooting, with blackout curtains and security bars for the classroom doors. Once staff members were aware of a shooter in the building, these precautions appeared effective. Hale wandered the hallways, unable to find targets, instead “shooting television sets, doors, and windows in areas where no one was present.”

The people killed in the shooting were: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all 9 years old; Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Mike Hill, 61.

Mary Joyce, who had a third grader in the class with the children who were killed, recalled Wednesday how Koonce and a male teacher spoke at a parent orientation in the fall before the shooting about their preparation in case of a school shooter.

“I remember he got emotional about it, but he said, ‘I feel really grateful that we are prepared if anything were to happen.’ And then it did,” Joyce recounted.