HOUSTON — A criminal defense attorney will file a petition Wednesday at 9 a.m. in the McLennan County District Court to appoint a "special master" to oversee the return of property for the 177 people arrested in wake of the 2015 Twin Peaks shooting, according to a press release from the Looney & Conrad Law Firm.
Attorney Paul Looney is filing the petition on behalf of six of the people arrested at Twin Peaks on May 17, 2015.
Currently, most of the belongings taken that day are still in possession of police, even though every case has been dismissed, the law firm said. The state of Texas is not joining in the motion, because it believes some of the property may be important in ongoing federal civil litigation, the firm said.
“There is no reason any of this property should not be returned without delay,” attorney Paul Looney said. “In fact, there is good cause to appoint a Special Master due to the volume of individual items of property involved—believed to be over 1,000 individual items.”
Looney's partner, Clay S. Conrad, said the people who were arrested at Twin Peaks deserve to have their property back in a swift manner.
“It is necessary that this property be returned and is both cumbersome and excessively burdensome on the Courts for each of the nearly 200 arrestees to individually have to litigate for return of their belongings,” Conrad said. “It should never be the case that the State simply gets to retain what they seized absent a burden on the lawful owner to file an action for conversion.”
The firm also said in the release a special master is necessary to organize the return of the property in an efficient and thorough manner.
On the day of the shooting, nine people died, 23 were hospitalized and 177 were initially arrested following the melee.
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