Popular Categories


Don’t bury Robb truth with dead suspect


Elected officials, beginning with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in the first days after the Robb attack, pledged to deliver the complete record of what happened. 

“It is imperative that the leaders of the investigations [Texas Rangers and FBI] get down to the very seconds of exactly what happened with 100 percent accuracy, and explain it to the public, but most importantly, to the victims who’ve been devastated.” That was the impassioned message Abbott delivered on May 27 in Uvalde High School’s John H. Harrell auditorium.

Almost 11 months later, neither the governor nor Texas DPS director Steve McCraw have delivered on that pledge. Information that has been made public has come largely from news media that obtained it through open records requests or leaks from unnamed sources. 

The sordid truth appears to be that state leaders never intended for a complete Robb investigation to see the light of day, but rather for it to remain hidden behind the “ongoing investigation” of Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell and then buried with the killer through a flaw in the Public Information Act known as the “dead suspect loophole.”

Then Gov. Dolph Briscoe Jr. of Uvalde signed The Texas Open Records Act  into law in 1973. The legislation, enacted in the wake of the Sharpstown stock fraud scandal, was hailed as one of the strongest transparency measures in the nation, even if it made an exception for law enforcement records. Texas attorneys general soon ruled that the carveout only covered active investigations.

In 1996 the law lost some of its punch, when the Texas Supreme Court ruled in a case styled Holmes v. Morales that the open records law made no distinction between open and closed files. The following year, then GOP state Sen. Jeff Wentworth attempted to reinstate the pre-Holmes status quo. District and county attorneys pushed back, and Wentworth compromised, amending his measure to allow law enforcement to keep secret any cases without a conviction.

In the intervening years, numerous legislators have sought to correct the flaw that has morphed into an enormous black hole into which police and prosecutors are all too happy to toss potentially problematic cases.

One of the most odious examples occurred following the 2013 death of 18-year-old Graham Dyer, while in the custody of the Mesquite Police Department. High on LSD, the teenager was arrested and taken to jail. His parents attempted to acquire video evidence from that night but were stymied by the loophole. They eventually convinced the FBI to take the case as a possible violation of their son’s civil rights. 

Because there is no dead suspect loophole in the federal Freedom of Information Act, the Dyers obtained video, which showed that Mesquite police had tasered their son in the testicles and then watched as he beat his head against the cement floor of his cell. The Dallas County district attorney said there was enough evidence to charge the cops, but the statute of limitations had passed.

State Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, has for the last four sessions authored legislation to correct the problem. House Bill 30, now being considered by the Texas Legislature, would end the dead suspect loophole, allowing those once-closed cases to be shared with the public.

Moody’s bill merits the support of lawmakers and none more than the governor who promised our community a timely and comprehensive report on why law enforcement required 77 minutes to end the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary. 

Our fear is that if and when the DA determines that there are no charges to be brought for the failed police response, the mass of investigative material – officers’ after action statements, video and audio evidence – will be forever sealed to protect law enforcement agencies.

How can we inform the public “with 100 percent accuracy” what went wrong on May 24, 2022, and strive to enact remedial measures if law enforcement’s actions are buried with the killer? That outcome would be worse than a vile deceit. It would be criminal.