Uvalde Hires Private Law Firm to Argue It Doesn't Have to Release School Shooting Public Records

[demmiblue]

Source: Vice

The City of Uvalde and its police department are working with a private law firm to prevent the release of nearly any record related to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in which 19 children and two teachers died, according to a letter obtained by Motherboard in response to a series of public information requests we made. The public records Uvalde is trying to suppress include body camera footage, photos, 911 calls, emails, text messages, criminal records, and more.

“The City has not voluntarily released any information to a member of the public,” the city’s lawyer, Cynthia Trevino, who works for the private law firm Denton Navarro Rocha Bernal & Zech, wrote in a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The city wrote the letter asking Paxton for a determination about what information it is required to release to the public, which is standard practice in Texas. Paxton's office will eventually rule which of the city's arguments have merit and will determine which, if any, public records it is required to release.

The letter makes clear, however, that the city and its police department want to be exempted from releasing a wide variety of records in part because it is being sued, in part because some of the records could include “highly embarrassing information,” in part because some of the information is “not of legitimate concern to the public,” in part because the information could reveal “methods, techniques, and strategies for preventing and predicting crime,” in part because some of the information may cause or may "regard … emotional/mental distress," and in part because its response to the shooting is being investigated by the Texas Rangers, the FBI, and the Uvalde County District Attorney.

The letter explains that Uvalde has at least one in-house attorney (whose communications it is trying to prevent from public release), and yet, it is using outside private counsel to deal with a matter of extreme importance and public interest. Uvalde’s city government and its police department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Motherboard.

Read more: https://www.vice.com/en/article/88q95p/uvalde-contracts-private-law-firm-to-argue-it-doesnt-have-to-release-school-shooting-public-records

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Link to tweet

[bucolic_frolic]

1. I think it's too soon to release sensitive material

What solace can be found needs to occur. I would think 2-5 years would be an appropriate time frame from an emotional standpoint.

[niyad]

9. So you are okay with these corrupt, incompetent officials covering their

asses and hiding the truth, as they are actually admitting that they are doing?

Or did you forget the sarcasm icon?

[quakerboy]

11. For who's emotional standpoint?

For those on the police force who would prefer to avoid scrutiny, there will never be an appropriate time frame.

I doubt the families feel the same about being blocked from access to information about what authorities were doing before, during and after their children were being murdered

[inthewind21]

20. The parents

of the dead kids disagree with you.

[LiberalFighter]

2. Because there are strategies for preventing and predicting crime???

How did that work out?

[Withywindle]

21. Excellent lesson in how NOT to do it, I suppose

I guess it might encourage potential copycats to see hundreds of cops standing around with their thumbs up their butts for over an hour?

[rpannier]

3. the information may cause or may "regard ... emotional/mental distress

by that they mean, "distress for the officials that did nothing but stand there and do nothing"

[ananda]

4. That's what I was thinking. It's only their distress and liability...

they are worried about.

[Ray Bruns]

5. Lookout! It's CYA time in Uvalde Texas

[hamsterjill]

18. The good ole boys' network

Out in full force.

Born and raised down there. Been gone for a while. Nothing has changed in decades.

The intent is Trumpian. Stall, stall, stall and make those who continue to voice opposition look like agitators.

I hope these families keep the pressure on.

[ZonkerHarris]

6. The blood on their hands has made them morally corrupt. Fuck those cops and that City Gov.

[James48]

7. What does Texas FOIA law say?

Most states don’t provide for “embarrassment” to be a reason to withhold. What does Texas law require?

[keithbvadu2]

8. They will never have to release video of Uvalde police charging the school/killer like they trained

They will never have to release video of Uvalde police charging the school/killer like they trained for.

[dlk]

10. Public school, public funds, public video...

Republicans would privatize/monetize everything, if they could.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

12. Source: Police never tried to open door to classrooms where Uvalde gunman had kids trapped

There is now an active coverup of the incompetence of the police at the Uvalde school shooting. The county has hired law firm to block access to the police records, 911 call transcripts and body cam footage, The truth will come out

The excuse for the one-hour delay in assaulting the shooter is that they needed a key, but no one ever checked to see if the door was locked

Link to tweet

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Uvalde-classroom-doors-17251197.php?utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter.com

Surveillance footage shows that police never tried to open a door to two classrooms at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde in the 77 minutes between the time a gunman entered the rooms and massacred 21 people and officers finally breached the door and killed him, according to a law enforcement source close to the investigation.

Investigators believe the 18-year-old gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at the school on May 24 could not have locked the door to the connected classrooms from the inside, according to the source.....

But Arredondo was not trying those keys in the door to classrooms 111 and 112, where Ramos was holed up, according to the law enforcement source. Rather, he was trying to locate a master key by using the various keys on doors to other classrooms nearby, the source said.

While Arredondo waited for a tactical team to arrive, children and teachers inside the classrooms called 911 at least seven times with desperate pleas for help. One of the two teachers who died, Eva Mireles, called her husband by cellphone after she was wounded and lay dying.

Days after the massacre, Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a news conference that “each door can lock from the inside” and that when Ramos went in, “he locked the door.” That information was preliminary, the source said, and further investigation has yielded new revelations about the door.

Kids bleed out waiting for these idiots to go into the classroom

If nothing else, some of the parents need to sue the police and get the facts out

[ck4829]

13. ...

[ck4829]

14. Never going away

[Kid Berwyn]

15. Natural Security

… The letter makes clear, however, that the city and its police department want to be exempted from releasing a wide variety of records in part because it is being sued, in part because some of the records could include “highly embarrassing information,” in part because some of the information is “not of legitimate concern to the public,” in part because the information could reveal “methods, techniques, and strategies for preventing and predicting crime,” in part because some of the information may cause or may "regard … emotional/mental distress," and in part because its response to the shooting is being investigated by the Texas Rangers, the FBI, and the Uvalde County District Attorney….

All-Texas CYA.

[Novara]

16. I'm thinking it is too late ...

... to avoid embarrassment.

This was a total cock-up. The bodycam footage will confirm what we already know - THEY MASSIVELY FUCKED UP.

[Paladin]

17. Never a good sign that such a matter is in Ken Paxton's hands. (nt)

[LetMyPeopleVote]

19. Uvalde is really trying to cover something up

[Withywindle]

22. I used to think that in the confusion

it's possible that a cop shot a kid or a teacher and that's what they're trying to hide.

I don't know what to think now that we know they didn't even try to go in there.