“Waco: As questions remain unanswered about last month’s deadly biker rampage in Waco, Texas, police there are trying to clamp down on public information about the case.
The move comes as scrutiny intensifies over the Waco Police Department’s handling of the sensational shootout that killed nine bikers, injured 18 and saw an unprecedented 175 people arrested and charged with engaging in organized crime.
By law, crime and arrest reports containing basic data — information such as a detailed description of the offense and the name and a description of the victim — have to be provided.
While some details about the dead, including identities, have trickled out, officials have been slow to provide information through documented reports as required by the Texas Public Records Act.
Yahoo News asked Benton, the assistant city attorney, if the 19 pages were sent by mistake.
“You requested incident reports dealing with the shootings and homicides,” she said. “And that’s what you got.”
Benton said that no true homicide reports existed when the request was made on May 19. Waco, however, waited the maximum days allowed by law to answer the request and printed the unrelated reports Wednesday morning.
“At the time you made your request, that’s what we had,” Benton told Yahoo News.
While technically legal, Aleshire likened the date issue to a prank.
“That’s game-playing by public officials that need an attitude adjustment,” he said. Link
