Texas attorney general rulings treated the shooting investigation as a child abuse case
El Paso Matters, a news organization, filed a lawsuit Thursday asking a state judge to lift a blanket of near-total secrecy on records of the 2019 Walmart mass shooting held by El Paso police and prosecutors, according to the petition. The case was assigned to 243rd District Court Judge Selena Solis.
The petition seeks a writ of mandamus — an order from a judge to a government official to perform a mandatory legal duty required by law. It asks the court to order the El Paso District Attorney’s Office and the city of El Paso to make the investigative records available to the public as outlined in the Texas Public Information Act. El Paso Matters is represented by the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law First Amendment Clinic, with support from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office, which reviews requests by state and local governments to withhold records sought under the Texas Public Information Act, has issued several rulings over the past 18 months finding that the public should never have access to the investigative records in the deadliest mass shooting targeting Hispanics in modern U.S. history. The office agreed with arguments from the city and the district attorney that the mass shooting investigation was a child abuse investigation under the Texas Family Code, and ordered both to keep secret all investigative and prosecutorial records in the case.
Under Texas law, records held by police and prosecutors about investigations generally are considered public after the investigation and any trials are complete. Child abuse investigations conducted under the Family Code are a major exception. The lawsuit asserts that the rulings in the Walmart case rest on a misreading of that law. “(T)he investigation and prosecution of (Patrick) Crusius did not concern an investigation of alleged or suspected child abuse or neglect,” the petition alleges. “Furthermore, the information requested was not developed in an investigation under Chapter 261 (the Family Code) and therefore is not subject to Chapter 261 withholding.”
According to the lawsuit, the Family Code’s confidentiality applies to abuse and neglect investigations that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services believes involve “a person responsible for a child’s care, custody, or welfare.” “The records requested by El Paso Matters concerned a homicide investigation arising from a public shooting by Patrick Crusius. Notably, Crusius had no relationship with the victims, including any caregiving relationship,” the petition said.
Using the Texas Public Information Act, El Paso Matters asked the department earlier this year for any records showing it had been involved in a child abuse investigation connected to the shooting. The department provided no records and pointed instead to its online policy handbook and its annual data reports, neither of which mentions the mass shooting. “The Legislature made the records of Chapter 261 investigations confidential to protect those who report abuse and the child and families who are the subject of abuse investigations,” the lawsuit said. “Withholding the records here advances none of those purposes: no child abuse was reported, no caregiver is implicated, and no child protective investigation occurred.”
The Aug. 3, 2019, attack at the Cielo Vista Walmart killed 23 people and injured 22. Adults comprised the vast majority of the dead and wounded, many of them in their 60s or older. A 15-year-old was killed, an infant was injured and other children were present in the store — circumstances the city and the District Attorney’s Office cited when they told records seekers the files involved a child abuse investigation and were confidential under Texas law.
Patrick Crusius, now 27, pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes and weapons charges in 2023 and to state capital murder and aggravated assault charges in 2025. Both pleas came after prosecutors decided not to seek the death penalty, and he is serving dozens of sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole. In his guilty pleas, Crusius’ attorneys admitted that he acted in an effort to stop what he saw as “the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” Because there was no trial, and because police and prosecutors have not released their investigative records, the public has received limited information about the evidence in the attack.
In a statement, El Paso District Attorney James Montoya said his office “handles all open record requests in accordance with Texas law, including seeking rulings from the Office of the Attorney General when the information or records requested may or are required to be withheld from public disclosure.” He added, “We recognize that the events of Aug. 3, 2019, continue to weigh heavily on our community, most especially the victims and their families, as we remain cognizant of that fact as we continue to litigate what information may or may be publicly disclosed.” City officials declined to comment because the matter involves pending litigation.
Kelley Shannon, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, which advocates for government transparency, said the Attorney General’s Office has been incorrectly applying the Family Code for years, keeping the public from accessing information about crimes to which it is entitled. “The Family Code shielding public records from release applies to caregiver situations in which child neglect or abuse is alleged and Child Protective Services is involved,” she said. “Unfortunately, this provision is being misconstrued by the Attorney General’s Office and invoked in non-caregiver situations any time a minor is present, when CPS is not even involved. The AG’s Office goes out of its way to apply this Family Code provision to these kinds of public records.”
“In the El Paso case, none of the children present in the Walmart during the mass shooting were part of a Child Protective Services case,” Shannon said. “They were just kids in the store, and, sadly, they were present during the horrific attack.”
“The public certainly has a right to know what happened during the Walmart shooting,” Shannon said. “We need to know how it happened, what safeguards might have failed and how law enforcement responded. Investigative records can help answer these questions.” She pointed to the 2022 Uvalde school shooting as a comparison: “Just as we need to know what occurred in the Uvalde school shooting in 2022, the public understandably has lingering questions about the El Paso mass shooting. Answers to these questions might help to prevent a tragedy like this in the future.”
The Attorney General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment from El Paso Matters.
Some material from the investigation has surfaced through other channels. The Texas Department of Public Safety, which played a supporting role in the shooting investigation, released a video last year of police interrogating Crusius in response to a records request from a YouTube channel, along with a video in which the FBI compiled store camera footage to trace the gunman’s movements. The department, which did not seek an attorney general ruling on whether it could withhold the material, also released dozens of crime scene photos. The YouTube channel, Interrogation Files, shared the video and photos with El Paso Matters and other media; El Paso Matters used the material for a story reconstructing the shooting but did not publish the sensitive video or photo evidence. The FBI, which handled the federal investigation of the shooting, has not yet provided records El Paso Matters requested under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The city and the District Attorney’s Office have not made public any investigative records from the attack.
In a disclosure accompanying its story, El Paso Matters said it was among the recipients of $5,000 matching grants from Walmart during the 2019 El Paso Giving Day campaign, and that Solis has been a financial supporter of the news organization. The disclosure stated that financial supporters play no role in El Paso Matters’ journalism.