Appeals court orders release of Uvalde school shooting records
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.
Arredondo is facing several felony charges of child endangerment, with a trial date set for October.
In a statement, Laura Prather, a media law attorney with Haynes Boone representing the news organizations, said the ruling sends a clear message to government officials that 'vague legal claims' cannot be used to withhold records.
'The public has waited more than three years for answers about what went wrong that day,' Prather said. 'This decision brings us one step closer to those answers and preventing future tragedies.'
A spokesperson for the Uvalde school district said its school board and superintendent have scheduled a discussion about the requested records during their public meeting on July 21. The Uvalde County Sheriff's Office did not respond to a request for comment. The order from Meza did not specify when the records would need to be released.
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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
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