A direct response to the Uvalde County DA and her questionable claims.
Some Uvalde families of victims who were killed or injured during the massacre at Robb Elementary School last year have asked a judge to add them as plaintiffs to a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Public Safety to argue that public records related to the shooting be released.
Numerous news organizations, including The Texas Tribune and ProPublica, are suing DPS for records that could provide a more complete picture of law enforcement’s response to the shooting, which left 19 students and two teachers dead in the border community.
Thomas J. Henry and Robert Wilson, the lawyers for the families of a teacher and a student killed, and other injured children, wrote in a court document filed in the case this week asking to be part of the lawsuit because they have the same interest as the news organizations suing.
“The reasons given for the withholding of the investigation or finding of the Texas Rangers and the Texas Department of Public Safety are without merit and unreasonable,” the lawyers wrote. The families “as victims of the tragedy, have a compelling need for the information that will override the need to keep the information withheld.”
[…]
Last week, [Uvalde County DA Christine] Mitchell’s office claimed in a court affidavit that the families of every child who was killed shared her view of withholding the investigative report.
“All of the families of the deceased children have stated to District Attorney Mitchell that they do not want the investigation of the Texas Rangers released until she has had ample time to review the case and present it to an Uvalde grand jury, if appropriate,” her office wrote.
But the families’ attorneys said they do want the report released.
“These Uvalde families fundamentally deserve the opportunity to gain the most complete factual picture possible of what happened to their children,” wrote Brent Ryan Walker, one of the attorneys who represents the parents of 16 deceased children and one who survived, in a court affidavit filed in the lawsuit.
See here for the previous update. As I said then, the clearest takeaway here is that one should be very reluctant to publicly lie about things that can be easily fact-checked. I mean, okay, the entire Wingnut Cinematic Universe contradicts that thesis, but we’re in the context of legal filings, and grieving parents who will surely have long memories. I have hope this will matter on both fronts.