Police ask state to grant confidentiality on video, other materials from Cummings shooting
The Brownsville Police Department has asked Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to rule against releasing files related to the fatal shooting of a Cummings Middle School student on Jan 4.
The material includes a surveillance video, according to the letter to the attorney general, dated Thursday.
Jaime Gonzalez Jr., 15, an eighth-grader at Cummings, was shot at the school by police when he brandished what appeared to be a handgun and refused to put it down when ordered to do so. Later the weapon was found to be a pellet gun.
The Brownsville Herald, along with several other media outlets, requested under public information laws, the police report and investigative file related to the shooting.
In the letter to the attorney general, police say releasing the investigative file would jeopardize the ongoing investigation.
The file contains a surveillance video, witness statements, evidence reports, crime scene measurements and crime scene diagrams, according to the letter, signed by Brownsville Police Commander James Paschall.
Paschall writes that the department and the Cameron County district attorney believe the investigative file falls under an exemption to public information laws that allows law enforcement to withhold information they believe would interfere with an ongoing investigation.
The letter states that the case of Gonzalez’s shooting "will be submitted to the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office and a grand jury."
Juvenile privacy
The letter also says the Brownsville Police Department was ready to release the police report, which details the shooting, but was informed by the state attorney general’s office that Texas law may prohibit its release because of juvenile privacy laws.
The report details an alleged aggravated assault involving Gonzalez and another juvenile that occurred prior to the shooting, the letter says.
Dale Kasofsky, an attorney for the family of Gonzalez, had also requested the files, but the letter states Kasofsky withdrew his request and will be submitting a separate request on the family’s behalf.
The Brownsville Herald made the open-records request on Jan. 5.
