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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Crime & justice fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about crime & justice. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

6,857 published reviews in this topic

FactCheck.orgCrime & justice

"Nashville Christian grade school shooter was a transgender female identified as Samantha Hyde."

Publisher’s rating: False

The claim combines two assertions about the Covenant School shooting in Nashville on March 27, 2023: that the shooter was named Samantha Hyde and that the shooter was a transgender female. The review identifies the shooter as Audrey Elizabeth Hale, not Samantha Hyde. It explains that “Samantha Hyde” was a new version of an internet hoax in which comedian Sam Hyde is falsely named as the suspect after mass shootings. The name released by police therefore contradicts the claim’s identification of the shooter as Samantha Hyde. (S1) The review also distinguishes what officials said about Hale’s gender identity from confusion over how those remarks were reported. At a March 27 briefing, police chief John Drake said Hale identified as transgender; the review says Drake later appeared to mistakenly describe Hale as a transgender woman. Police spokesman Don Aaron subsequently clarified that Hale was “a biological woman who, on a social media profile, used male pronouns.” Thus, the review reports that Hale was transgender, but the phrase “transgender female” misstates the clarification it cites. (S1) The review’s account rests on statements attributed to police and the spokesman, alongside the chronology of the developing public identification. Its conclusion is specific: police identified Audrey Hale as the shooter, while “Samantha Hyde” came from a hoax; the gender description in the claim does not match the spokesman’s clarification. The excerpt notes that many details were still unreleased at the time, so it does not establish more than those points. (S1)