The Brownsville school district is pushing back on a request for information related to a Jan. 4 shooting at one of its middle schools.

The district has appealed a public records request from the Brownsville Herald for the number of students from some of its schools who have been assigned to special learning centers within the district.

The Herald has also asked for the surveillance video of the shooting from the Brownsville Police Department, which is also requesting a state attorney general's ruling. Brownsville ISD's in-house lawyer Leandra C. Ortiz is handling the appeal, the paper reports. Ortiz was hired by the district in November. The district cites the privacy of student records as its reason for withholding the records.

Houston law firm Thompson & Horton has represented Brownsville ISD's request appeals over the past year or so, the same firm that also represents the Houston school district.

The shooting death of eighth grader Jaime Gonzalez, 15, in a hallway at Brownsville's Cummings Middle School made national news. Police say officers shot the teen after he pointed what looked like a real handgun at them. The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun that bore striking resemblance to a Glock semiautomatic pistol.

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Contact Steve Miller at 832-303-9420 or stevemiller@texaswatchdog.org.

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Photo of Glock 17 pistol by Wikipedia user Nukes4Tots, used via a Creative Commons license.