NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — When NewsChannel 5 first met Garet Davidson, he was making misconduct allegations against his old department, Metro Police.
"Basically a good ole boy’s system with rank bias and people protecting each other," said Garet, in an interview back in June.
Now, Davidson appears to be the subject of a different investigation. NewsChannel 5 has confirmed the TBI conducted a search at his Robertson County home back in September. Though the TBI wouldn't elaborate further, it's likely connected to leaking writings from the Covenant shooter.
The timeline
This all began in November 2023, when Metro launched an investigation into how a few pages were leaked from the shooter's journals to a conservative podcaster. The next month, Davidson resigned from Metro Police.
In May, Davidson released his report full of allegations against MNPD. That's when Davidson granted an interview with me to talk about the report. "I hope that there are key changes within leadership," Davidson said at the time.
The next day, June 4, Davidson appeared on the Michael Patrick Leahy Show. Only, instead of the allegations, they spoke mostly about the Covenant shooting documents.
"We say manifesto, it’s not one document, it’s multiple documents?" asked Leahy.
"Over 20," said Davidson.
On the show, Davidson also confirmed he had seen excerpts of the shooter's writings.
"How many of these have you seen?" asked Leahy.
"Excerpts, so probably a few dozen pages," replied Davidson.
On June 14, an MNPD lieutenant filed a court document, alleging Davidson was the only person during that investigation who had access to where the shooter's writings were stored. However, the lieutenant stopped short of fully accusing Davidson of being the leaker.
Potential penalties
NewsChannel 5 Legal Analyst Nick Leonardo says if investigators can get conclusive evidence about who leaked the Covenant shooter's writings, that person could face a felony.
"If, somehow, he was paid for releasing those documents, then I think it would be a serious offense at that point in time," said Leonardo. "If those were leaked prior to the court order coming out, that’s not as much of a problem. But if these documents were released after a court had sealed them, then there could be additional penalties for contempt and other things that could come along the way."
That being said, Leonardo stressed searching Davidson's home could also eventually clear his name.
"It could actually be something that exonerates this individual to say — hey they haven’t done anything wrong," said Leonardo.
The other investigation
After Davidson published his own allegations against MNPD, Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell and Metro Legal Director Wally Dietz appointed an independent investigator to look into the claims.
Dietz confirmed Wednesday that the probe remains ongoing and that he has no estimate for when that investigation will conclude.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at Chris.Davis@NewsChannel5.com.
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
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