Meza
SAN ANTONIO - The public is entitled to information surrounding the 2022 mass shooting in Uvalde, a Texas appeals court has ruled in a victory for media outlets like the Texas Tribune, ABC News and the New York Times.
Justice Velia Meza and two colleagues issued the ruling of the Fourth Court of Appeals on July 16, affirming a lower court that decided the bare-bones response to a records request was insufficient.
The shooting at Robb Elementary School perpetrated by Salvador Ramos killed 19 students and two teachers. The appeals court's ruling follows the Texas Supreme Court's decision to toss a lawsuit seeking emails with gun industry lobbyists from Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton in the tragedy's aftermath.
The media sought incident reports, communication logs, camera footage, policies, contracts, personnel files and Ramos' education records, but received from Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District limited information regarding board policies and student withdrawals.
Uvalde County supplied only a single-page incident report.
(T)hese entities offered only minimal justification - citing a grand jury investigation and a civil lawsuit - without providing legal or evidentiary support for withholding the information," Justice Meza wrote.
Information that will now be turned over, absent further action from the state Supreme Court, will be subject to redactions, as long as the ISD and the county can provide a legal basis for them.
The ISD and county had argued the information was not subject to disclosure as a matter of law, standing behind a defense of governmental immunity from the lawsuit.
It also argued things like dispatch logs, ballistics and evidence logs and security camera footage weren't "public information." But the Texas Supreme Court has already held government agencies can't rely on "vague assertions" of confidentiality.
AG Paxton had backed the county and ISD after viewing a sample of the documents sought, which the appeals court did not have access to.
"As a result, it is impossible to determine which documents the School District seeks to withhold under these exceptions," Meza wrote.
"Apart from vague, conclusory assertions, the School District provides nothing that would enable a meaningful review of its decision to withhold an unspecified quantity of documents with unknown contents. Accordingly, we conclude that the School District's summary judgment evidence fails to create a fact issue as to each element of the claimed exceptions."
