Uvalde DA pushes back on disclosure of records
Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee on Thursday fought the release of records related to the May 24 massacre at Robb Elementary School, saying such a move would compromise the ongoing investigation into the shooting and law enforcement actions that day.
Busbee was testifying before a district court in Travis County, where Democratic state Sen. Roland Gutierrez argued that the Department of Public Safety should release several law enforcement records related to the shooting. Days after the massacre, he submitted a public records request for ballistics reports and a full account of law enforcement response, but the department refused at Busbee’s direction.
The district attorney said she feared the information’s release would jeopardize criminal charges she may pursue down the line, and “we would lose a lot of cooperation” from witnesses.
“If there’s information placed out in the public, then people would be apt to come to a conclusion without hearing the full story, the full investigation there,” Busbee said. “There is no way that I would be able to see that justice was done.”
DPS had offered to provide the records to Gutierrez alone on July 21 — for his “legislative purposes” — with the condition that he did not release the documents publicly. The senator declined, saying the public deserves transparency.
“This community is broken,” Gutierrez, whose district includes Uvalde, told the court. “And they’re broken because they’ve gotten bits and pieces and shards of information, mostly from the Department of Public Safety, pointing fingers at different law enforcement agencies, showing them bits of evidence from other law enforcement agencies, but never ever pointing that mirror to themselves.”
Lawyers for the state also argued that Gutierrez did not properly submit a public records request since he sent it to a DPS employee instead of the open records division, invalidating his lawsuit.
Gutierrez has been pushing for months for a public release of Uvalde records, noting that law enforcement officials and politicians have repeatedly changed their stories about the events of May 24. In the days immediately following the shooting, Gov. Greg Abbott and other leaders praised police for their quick response to the incident, only to find out shortly after that hundreds of officers declined to confront the teenage gunman for more than an hour.
Nineteen children and two teachers died that day. Another 17 people were injured.
Busbee said the release of some material related to the shooting has already negatively affected the Uvalde community and law enforcement investigations. One witness changed her testimony after reading a Texas House committee’s initial findings on the shooting, Busbee said, and last month’s release of footage from the hallway outside the classrooms “re-traumatized” the victims’ families.
“Too much information, too much disclosure, adversely affects the investigation,” she said, adding that distributing evidence without context “raises more questions than answers.”
Busbee asked concerned members of the public “for time and patience” as multiple officials, including DPS, the House committee and the FBI, finish their probes.
“These take a long time, and I understand the frustration, but they have to take the time in order to make sure we do the job right,” she said.
The judge, Catherine Mauzy, gave all parties until Monday to submit additional documents and said she would decide the case “sooner than later.”