AUSTIN, Texas – An attorney representing multiple families of victims in the Uvalde school massacre asked a state district judge in Austin this week to force the Texas Department of Public to release records from the shooting.
Attorney Robert Wilson filed a plea in intervention in 419th District Court on Tuesday on behalf of six victims killed or injured during the school shooting.
The filing asks the court the compel DPS to release records at the center of an ongoing lawsuit filed against the state agency by multiple media organizations , including KSAT 12.
The media organizations, including local, state and national newsrooms, filed requests under the Texas Public Information Act for records related to the state and local law enforcement response to the shooting.
However, DPS officials refused to release them, citing a pending investigation exemption often controversially used by law enforcement agencies.
The organizations filed suit late last summer.
Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell in recent weeks joined DPS in fighting the release of public records from the shooting. Mitchell contends that releasing the records could hinder any possible criminal charges stemming from the massacre.
A detailed report from a Texas House of Representatives Investigative Committee released last summer laid out the failed police response and missed red flags leading up to the shooting.
An 18-year-old gunman in late May shot and killed 19 students and two teachers before he was fatally shot by police in what was the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.