FRANKLIN, Tenn. (WTVF) — It was another startling claim by Franklin candidate for mayor Gabrielle Hanson, a claim that she tried to warn police just days before Nashville's Covenant School shooting back in March.
Now, NewsChannel 5 Investigates has obtained video evidence — from the body-worn camera of the officer Hanson claims to have warned — to prove it never happened.
Hanson, a Franklin alderman, made the claim earlier this year in an interview with the podcast, the Mill Creek View.
"The Wednesday before that shooting was when the police came to my house to register the report for the phone calls and the death threats," Hanson said, referring to threats she claimed to have received in response to her opposition to Franklin's Pride Festival.
"I looked at that officer and I said, 'I'm telling you right now I have zero, zero basis for what I am about to tell you, other than my gut. Nobody has tipped me off, nobody has said anything. But my gut is telling me there is going to be an active shooter.' I felt it, I just felt it. Don't ask me how. It could be a Holy Spirit thing, but I felt an active shooter coming."
Listen to excerpt below:
Which is why NewsChannel 5 Investigates filed a public records request for the officer's bodycam video.
If Hanson is to be believed, we anticipated that we would find evidence there, in the video, to support her claims that she had indeed tried to sound the alarm.
That would have been a remarkable revelation except, when we checked the video, first of all, she never reports any actual death threats, as she had claimed in the podcast interview.
Instead, she plays a voicemail from a woman who identified herself as "Brooke" and leaves a telephone number for Hanson to call her back.
"You're pathetic and you're filled with hate. We will make sure everyone remembers your name," Brooke says, ending with: "Have a lovely day. Give me a call back.... God bless."
Hanson looks to the officer, adding: "A little bit threatening."
The Franklin alderman then suggests that perhaps the caller's phone number should become public record, that maybe she even deserves a visit from police.
"So perhaps she wants her phone number everywhere. Yeah, yeah. And maybe a follow-up with her. Her tone was a little threatening. 'What exactly are they going to do? How are they going to remember me exactly? What are we having planned, Brooke?'"
The officer laughs it off, and Franklin police decided there was no crime to investigate.
Hanson does express concern about protesters potentially clashing when the Franklin Board of Mayor and Aldermen took a vote on the Pride Festival.
"There's a lot of emotion, especially in the gay community. They tend to be more emotional."
But, during the 23-minute video, she never mentions anything remotely like the Covenant School shooting. There's no mention of a premonition, no mention of an active shooter, no mention of the Holy Spirit.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates showed the video to Jason Rowlett, whose daughter was inside Covenant on that fateful day.
We asked, "Any conceivable reason she would make this up?"
"I can't really justify it," Rowlett answered. "My assumption is it somehow makes her look credible about something serious, but I think it did anything but that."
Back in May, Rowlett called for Hanson to be removed from office after she had, in that same podcast, spread a completely false story about the shooter's motivations, claiming she had a source with inside knowledge.
"Alderman Hanson publicly slandered the victims of the March 27th massacre at our school. She has caused further pain and anguish to the surviving staff and families," Rowlett told the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.
Yet, for weeks, Hanson has dodged questions about her claims.
When NewsChannel 5 Investigates caught up with her and her husband outside the Williamson County courthouse on Friday, she suddenly put her phone to her ear.
"Ms. Hanson, do you think that telling stories about the Covenant shooting is a joke?" we asked.
"Do you not owe the voters an explanation?"
She ignored all the questions.
It turns out that Hanson's fabrications have gone even further.
In a talk radio interview with WWTN host Matt Murphy, she questioned how actress Melissa Joan Hart happened to be near Covenant at the time of the shooting where she helped children who were trying to escape.
"Well, maybe, that's why Melissa Joan Hart was there," Hanson said. "She must have known it was going to happen also."
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Jason Rowlett, "She's playing off of people's pain, your pain?"
"Absolutely, absolutely," he agreed.
Yet, plenty of Hanson for Mayor signs can be seen throughout Franklin despite her many bogus claims about Covenant and about herself.
We asked Rowlett, "If you had a chance to talk to Gabrielle Hanson, what would you ask her, what would you say to her?"
"I would tell her," Rowlett said, "that she owes our community an apology, she owes the people of Franklin an apology, her constituents."
But if Gabrielle Hanson has any regrets about how she's used the Covenant School tragedy, she's certainly keeping them to herself.
Hanson is now running for mayor on a pro-morality campaign for mayor. How these sorts of claims square with her campaign message will be an issue for voters to decide.
Her opponent, incumbent mayor Ken Moore, has kept a low profile, letting this controversy play out, although he has issued a statement, saying that he believes Hanson needs to answer all of these questions about her conduct.
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