A Texas judge has ordered that all school and county sheriff records pertaining to the Uvalde school shooting must be released to the public.
The tight lid kept by the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (CISD) will finally be loosened after the 38th Judicial District Court of Uvalde County ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in one of several legal actions taken in the wake of the tragedy at Robbe Elementary School.
The victims, victims’ families, and community members have long sought information about — as well as accountability for — the shooting at Robb Elementary School in 2022 that left two teachers and 19 children dead and 17 others injured. Lawsuits have been pursued against an array of actors, such as the City of Uvalde, the social media company Meta, shipping giants UPS and FedEx, and the video game titan Activision, believed by the claimants to have played a role in the 18-year-old killer’s heinous act.
Even though various entities have issued a series of investigative reports on the Robb Elementary shooting, there have been steady calls for more transparency about the response of school authorities and law enforcement to the active shooter situation.
Thanks to a lawsuit filed by several news organizations, including The Texas Tribune, the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office and Uvalde CISD have until July 28 to release all pertinent documents to the public. These entities had reportedly been avoiding doing so for quite some time, with public information requests made by the plaintiffs going unanswered.
Neither the sheriff’s office nor the district has publicly commented on the judge’s ruling.
Haynes Boone, a law firm headquartered in Dallas, represented the plaintiffs.
“This ruling is a pivotal step towards ensuring transparency and accountability,” said Laura Prather, a Haynes Boone attorney, per The Texas Tribune. “The public deserves to know the full details of the response to this tragic event, and the information could be critical in preventing future tragedies.”
However, there may be more hurdles in the way of releasing these long-awaited documents.
Shortly after the shooting in 2022, the news organizations filed a similar lawsuit against the Texas Department of Public Safety, and a district judge rule in their favor. However, the release of the withheld information pertaining to the department’s Uvalde response has been delayed, pending the outcome of an appeal filed by DPS late last year.
Moreover, an ongoing criminal investigation of Pete Arredondo, the former police chief of Uvalde CISD, could also prevent the release of information that could compromise the case, as Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell has argued, per The Texas Tribune.
As covered in The Dallas Express, Arredondo and an unidentified officer were indicted on multiple counts of child endangerment late last month. The allegations include failing to evacuate the affected school wing promptly during the active shooter event, neglecting to verify the security of classroom doors, and not ensuring that children were promptly transferred to designated emergency care providers.