City Denies Record Due to Being Inept
AG sides with city and denies public information request.
The city of Wortham denied a public records request for police bodycam footage due to their inability to censor out portions of the video.
Lauren McGaughy, a highly respected journalist for KUT Austin, submitted a request for bodycam footage related to an officer-involved shooting. The city of Wortham, population 980, responded that it lacked the ability to redact confidential information in the video.
The Attorney General initially sided with McGaughy, stating that the videos had to be released, but later issued a new ruling stating that if the city lacked the ability to censor sensitive information, it did not need to release the videos.
The ruling is concerning for multiple reasons. Basic censorship software for video is not only a necessity for a police department. Additionally, there are multiple free video editing tools that are capable of censoring video.
It also potentially opens up the ability for city governments or police departments to claim that they lack technical capabilities in order to withhold valuable information that would normally be provided to the public.
Multiple X users responded, stating that other cities across Texas have used the same excuse in order to deny fulfilling information requests.
Additionally, Holly Hansen with The Texan has covered the delay tactics and problems with open records in Texas.
…officials appeal to the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) for an exception, which may be legitimate but may also just be a delaying tactic. The OAG took nearly four months to respond to Harris County’s appeal of my request for communications related to the Colony Ridge development, and as of yet the county has still not complied.
Soon they're going to be saying stuff like "we don't know how to open a zip file sorry".
Boomer-ocracy.
This is the equivalent of saying they don’t have access to the internet. It is blatantly absurd and evidence only of unconscionable bad faith.