Texas lawmakers can decide on a bill that would allow records of law enforcement agencies to be concealed

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A new bill is working its way through the Texas legislature, which would conceal certain law enforcement records.

The bill would make unsubstantiated complaints against officers still accessible by law enforcement agencies, but not the public.

In a situation involving law enforcement, anyone can access a formal complaint against the officer you’re dealing with, whether or not they were disciplined, but that could change.

“We get complaints all the time that are just completely baseless,” Douglas Griffith, the president of the Houston Police Officers Union, who also supports the bill, said.

“If they are unfounded or exonerated, which are the two ways they clear cases, there is no reason to put that in public. There’s not,” he said. “There’s no evidence they committed any violation at that point.

“If you have nothing to hide, then don’t worry about it. Kill this bill,” Krish Gundu, the co-founder and executive director of the Texas Jail Project, said.

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Gundu and her group have exposed poor conditions at the Harris County Jail.

Much of their work begins with reviewing inmate complaints against jailers, which she claims are often dismissed.

“The thing to remember is that unsubstantiated does not mean false,” she said. “Unsubstantiated could just mean something that was not investigated because it did not rise to the level of whatever the threshold is to make it in the officer’s disciplinary file.”

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Lawmakers have until the end of the current special session, which the speaker says could be Friday, to decide on the bill.

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