PIA

By Caroline Ghisolfi Austin American-Statesman Originally published July 15, 2022 Newsrooms across the country are waiting on the Texas attorney general’s office to decide if records that could reveal crucial information about law enforcement’s botched response to the Uvalde school shooting should be released. But if the office's track record with such cases is any indication, there could be little chance that many of the records will be released any time soon. An American-Statesman investigation into the agency's handling of more than 240,000 public records disputes over Attorney General Ken Paxton's nearly eight-year tenure reveals that his office has increasingly blocked the [...]

June 22, 2022 Statement from Kelley Shannon, executive director of Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, urging transparency in Uvalde mass shooting investigation: The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas continues to urge law enforcement and other government officials at all levels – school, city, county, state and federal – to promptly release critical information related to the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Uvalde residents and the public at large have been subjected to the withholding of information about what took place that dreadful day. Information that has trickled out since the tragedy has sometimes [...]

By Lexi Churchill ProPublica co-published with The Texas Tribune June 15, 2022 A growing list of state and local officials are fighting the release of records that could help bring clarity to how the emergency response unfolded during last month’s deadly shooting in Uvalde. The governor’s office strayed from that broader opposition Monday, granting a request under the Texas Public Information Act from a Houston television station that sought the handwritten notes he used when he first spoke publicly about the shooting. The notes appear to support Abbott’s claim that he was misled when he initially praised law enforcement efforts during [...]