For more than a year, the state Department of Public Safety has blocked the release of records that could offer more clarity into the police response. The agency can appeal the ruling.

The ruling by 261st Civil District Court Judge Daniella DeSeta Lyttle calls on DPS to fulfill 28 records requests filed by the news organizations, which include ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, subject to redactions such as personal information of police officers and blurring the faces of minor victims in crime scene photographs.

The files would shed light on the failed police response, in which officers waited more than an hour to confront the shooter who had an AR-15-style rifle. Nineteen children and two teachers died that day.

Lyttle issued a preliminary order in June. The one issued Tuesday is the final judgment. It requires DPS to provide the records sought within 20 days, unless the state police agency appeals the ruling.

    • athos77@kbin.social
      12·
      1 year ago

      It wasn’t us, it was this terrible winter storm, it took out all the power, I swear! [points at map with sharpied-in winter storm]

      • rifugee@lemmy.world
        8·
        1 year ago

        Oh, and ignore the fact that the winter storm took out the power because we have our own grid and it’s barely regulated, making it predictably not able to handle the kind of winter storms we’re now more likely to get due to the climate change that we don’t believe in.

    • Coasting0942@reddthat.com
      9·
      1 year ago

      No, they schedule an email to send but their crappy IT systems hiccup and the appeal email doesn’t get sent until after the deadline

  • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
    36·
    1 year ago

    The one issued Tuesday is the final judgment. It requires DPS to provide the records sought within 20 days, unless the state police agency appeals the ruling.

    So how many years of appeals will go by now, I wonder?

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      453·
      1 year ago

      What’s sick, absolutely sick, is that Texans still overwhelmingly support the same police that want to cover up their atrocious behavior and their cowardice while a man rampaged through an elementary school, massacring children.

      • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
        234·
        1 year ago

        They never genuinely cared about the quality of their police, they just needed something to blame besides “a weapon manufacturer that targets teenagers with their marketing was allowed to legally sell two semi-automatic rifles to someone with a history of death threats and animal abuse, who immediately used them for the standard domestic homicide/mass execution of children”.

        Their crime was embarrassing gun owners, not failing to save children.

        Police were on the scene within minutes of the first gunshot at Sandy Hook and they breached the room a few minutes after that.

        27 people were already dead, because it turns out that AR-15s can easily supply violence far in excess of what anyone could ever need for sport or self defense.

        But his mother was a “responsible gun owner”, so he had free access to firearms and the moment he was armed, it was too late for someone.

        Because the dirty secret is that even the “good guy with a gun” perfect case, when they’re seconds away, armed, competent (despite competence being voluntary) and not just fleeing with everyone else, they can’t intervene until shots have been fired.

      • Ænima@lemm.ee
        51·
        1 year ago

        I mean Texas is still a primarily Republican state and we know Republicans are pro-life until the birth of the child. It’s not surprising at all that there are Texans who still support these cowards.

        They proved that day that cops are just a bunch of LARPers using guns instead of “lightning bolts.”