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I would guess that, if my loved ones were murdered in a senseless and insane attack, I would prefer that it not be discussed as a CW jerkoff game for people on the internet. Which was always going to be the inevitable result once it was released. We're even seeing the rhetorical Judo throw where people are turning it into a CW jerkoff game about how it doesn't contain any/enough CW material. I can understand the families of the victims, or the school community as a whole, feeling it was not worth the psychological harm of having the story in the news longer than it needed to be to have the manifesto made public knowledge.
Grief does not generally lead people to wisdom, definitely not in the short-term, but I think it would be pretty obvious that suppressing the document would ensure that it gained more attention and extending the misery. If they'd just let the stupid thing be released, people would've stopped caring ages ago.
The only way to prevent the "CW jerkoff game" that would be a full media blackout starting at the same time as the shooting. Once you're thrust into the public eye, you no longer have any ability to stop that, and anything you do in public regarding the tragedy ultimately plays to one side or the other.
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As I say elsewhere, such sentiment is to be expected from victims, but judges and LEOs are not supposed to let such things cloud their judgement.
Indeed, while you dismiss interest in the concealed as a judo move, I find it quite reasonable to argue that concealment made this story stick, which is the opposite of the intended purpose.
We sadly have things to compare this to. Randy Stair was trans and had an even more insane and lurid justification for his killings, and yet that dropped out of the news cycle like a stone. Because, well, who's going to argue about someone that obviously deluded.
People here should be all too familiar with scissor statements. It is ambiguity that breeds culture war. Straightforward things don't produce the engine like reaction of one side to the other that ignites these flamewars.
I think a much more reasonable way of ensuring the interest of everyone would have been to release this diary as evidence and to redact the name and personal details of the people Hale was infatuated with instead of entertaining these absurd adventures in copyright.
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