AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas appeals court heard arguments Wednesday on whether the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) must release records from the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde.
It is the latest court battle in a fight by media organizations to make records related to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School public. A coalition of news organizations – including KVUE's parent company, TEGNA – sued DPS after public records requests related to the response were repeatedly denied.
Last year, a Travis County state district judge ordered DPS to release its records related to the shooting, which would shed light on troopers' actions that day. DPS appealed that decision to the Texas Fifteenth Court of Appeals, leading to the hearing.
"If this court does what they are asking, they would be cloaking in secrecy the entire investigative file in secrecy forever, not just for a finite period of time," said Laura Prather, the attorney representing the media organizations.
A total of 21 lives were lost inside Robb Elementary when a gunman entered the school and opened fire. Since then, details about the response have trickled out to the public. It took 77 minutes for officers to enter the classroom where the gunman was and take him down. Nearly 400 law enforcement officers responded to the scene that day before and after the shooter had been killed.
KVUE and other news organizations requested police body camera footage, 911 calls, emails, text messages and other communications related to the shooting and subsequent investigation. Those records could give more insight into law enforcement's decision-making process during the mass shooting.
During the hearing, Fifteenth Court of Appeals Chief Justice Scott Brister noted the records include more than 6 million pages of documents and hundreds of hours of video.
"We're talking about the most significant law enforcement failure in Texas history that they would like to cloak in secrecy forever from the general public," Prather said. "The public interest couldn't be higher."
Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell and lawyers representing Texas DPS have opposed releasing the records, saying it would harm the investigation into the shooting.
"They can make whatever inflammatory allegations about DPS they'd like to make," Texas Assistant Solicitor General Sara Baumgardner said. "Texas courts have recognized that the entity in the best position to know what would interfere with a prosecution is the actual prosecutor, not a bunch of news outlets."
In an affidavit, Mitchell objected to the release of the documents and said they should be kept out of public view under Texas law.
"Often, revealing what documents we have or what particular reasons certain things would interfere with an investigation or prosecution can reveal things about the investigation or prosecution that are better kept private," Baumgardner said. "These kinds of proceedings are highly sensitive and sometimes slicing off a piece of the investigation and revealing it can reveal stuff about the slice you didn't slice off."
Prather argued that the district attorney's affidavit was not specific enough and did not establish why the documents needed to remain sealed.
"It doesn't identify any specific documents as to why or how those specific documents or materials would interfere or would cause an interference with the investigation," Prather told the court.
Recently, Mitchell announced a grand jury had issued a criminal indictment for former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo and Uvalde CISD police officer Adrian Gonzales.
The grand jury indictment is part of the broader investigation into who should be held responsible for law enforcement inaction during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary.
In court on Wednesday, Baumgardner cited concerns about jury bias, witness recollection of facts and events from that day and tainting public opinion as concerns with releasing the records to the public.
Authorities have released some records relating to the shooting. After a different legal battle, in August, the city of Uvalde released recorded emergency calls to 911, police audio dispatch, phone call recordings, and body and dash camera footage.
The three-judge panel on the Fifteenth Court of Appeals did not say when they planned to issue a ruling in this case. Whatever decision they make can still be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.