AUSTIN, Texas — A group of news organizations asked a Texas appeals court on Wednesday to order the release of state Department of Public Safety records of the law enforcement response to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, the latest dispute over what should be made public from one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
A judge in Travis County had previously ordered the state police agency to release its records after the news organizations sued for access. The state and the Uvalde district attorney have objected, arguing that their release could jeopardize law enforcement investigations, and the state appealed to keep them out of the public view.
In a hearing before the 15th Court of Appeals, Laura Prather, an attorney for the media organizations, called the attempt to block the records "an attempt to cloak the entire file in secrecy forever. We're talking about the most significant law enforcement failure in Texas history ... The public interest could not be higher.''
One judge on the panel noted that the DPS records include more than 6 million pages of documents and hundreds of hours of video.
The district attorney's objection was enough to block the release under Texas law, said Texas Assistant Solicitor General Sara Baumgardner.
''(The media) can make whatever inflammatory allegations about DPS they'd like to make,'' Baumgardner said. ''Texas courts have recognized that the entity in best position to know what would interfere with a prosecution is the actual prosecutor, not a bunch of news outlets.''
The appeals court did not indicate when it might rule on the case. Any decision can be appealed to the state Supreme Court.
The Associated Press was not among the news organizations that sued.
