Good.
A state appeals court judge on Wednesday ordered Uvalde County and its school district to release records and documents related to the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting, affirming a previous trial court order.
A coalition of 18 news organizations, including The Texas Tribune, sued the City of Uvalde, Uvalde County and the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District in 2022 for access to body camera footage, 911 call records and communications made during the school shooting. Law enforcements’ response to Texas’ deadliest school shooting, in which 19 students and two teachers were killed, has been scrutinized extensively for failures in communication that delayed response time while the shooter was still in two classrooms with children.
Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell had opposed providing the records, pointing to criminal proceedings against former Uvalde school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo that she said could be hampered by the documents’ release. But Judge Velia Meza with Texas’ Fourth Court of Appeals wrote in the opinion for the case that the criminal proceedings and a separate lawsuit were not enough reasons to withhold the records.
“In response, these entities offered only minimal justification — citing a grand jury investigation and a civil lawsuit — without providing legal or evidentiary support for withholding the information,” Meza wrote.
The lawsuit was filed in 2022, and the district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs last year. Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton can keep their Uvalde secrets, but Uvalde County and the school district can’t, so at least we get that much. The order doesn’t specify when the records must be released, so even if there’s no further appeals this may take awhile. The case information is here, at the time I looked I didn’t see a copy of the opinion.