News outlets report public records requests delayed, denied

In the weeks following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, when 19 children and two teachers were killed and 17 other adults and children were injured, official stories have changed, information released by various agencies has been corrected and/or retracted and law enforcement’s actions have been scrutinized, prompting some state and local officials to stop releasing public records related to investigations into the massacre.
The Uvalde Leader-News has covered the tragedy, the community’s devastation in the aftermath and each step in the city and school district’s response, helping survivors and families demand answers.
After reports that law enforcement arriving on the scene waited more than an hour before entering the school building where bystanders could hear shots being fired inside, news outlets throughout the country have reported their public information requests are being stalled or denied.
The Texas Tribune and ProPublica have submitted about 70 public information requests, which their reporters say “could help answer larger questions as state and local leaders continue to offer conflicting accounts about why law enforcement did not confront the gunman sooner during the May 24 massacre. Those requests include 911 audio recordings, body and police car camera footage, and communications among local, state and federal agencies. The newsrooms also requested use-of-force documents, death records and ballistic reports.”
According to the Texas Tribune, “three weeks after the shooting, government officials have not provided the news organizations a single record related to the emergency response.”
District Attorney Christina Mitchell said she expects her office’s investigation into the May 24 shooting to take at least six months to complete, if not longer, the Uvalde Leader-News reported June 12. Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, refuted claims that the DA’s investigation, being conducted with the Texas Rangers, prohibits the release of information that he sought regarding state law enforcement’s response.
Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, announced June 22 that he is suing the Texas Department of Public Safety over records related to the shooting. Gutierrez serves on the Texas Senate panel investigating the police response to the shooting.
The Leader-News reported Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin Jr. and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell have both said they are also awaiting answers from state officials, “but both the city of Uvalde and UCISD have denied public information requests. UCISD suspended the release of all information requested via the Public Information Act, through June 18, under a catastrophe notice submitted to the attorney general’s office.”
The Leader-News also reported that McLaughlin accused DPS director Col. Steven McCraw of manipulating information. The mayor alleged that “misinformation, corrections and leaked information from unnamed sources has served to cast aspersions on local law enforcement.”
McLaughlin said four other federal and state entities — the FBI, DPS, Texas Legislature and the district attorney’s office — had access to the surveillance footage, and decried ongoing leaks of body cam footage. The mayor said that he and other officials did not have access to Uvalde Police Department footage, the Leader-News reported. McLaughlin said he felt the families of victims deserved a full picture of what happened.
The Leader-News reported that in a statement issued June 14, the mayor said further information would not be released, per a request from the district attorney. In a June 22 interview with the Texas Tribune, McLaughlin said he was no longer going to honor that request.
In an interview with the Texas Tribune and ProPublica, First Amendment attorney Laura Prather said the reason the state allows agencies to withhold information when it is part of an ongoing investigation is to protect someone who was accused of a crime but didn’t ultimately get convicted, “not to protect law enforcement for their actions in circumstances like this, where the shooter is dead.”
“The public has the right to know what happened that day, and right now they can only act on rumors and conflicting information,” said Prather, who is representing ProPublica in an unrelated defamation lawsuit. She said law enforcement must be transparent in order to earn the public’s trust, but agencies are instead using their discretionary powers “to thwart the public from getting information that they are rightly entitled to.”
Because state law allows government officials to withhold information in cases that don’t result in a conviction, it creates a loophole that lets governments deny records in cases where the offender was killed and will never be tried.