On a Saturday afternoon in downtown Denton, a man fired multiple shots at 61-year-old Jon Ruff on a public sidewalk and killed him.
Seven months later, there are more questions than answers about what happened.
Who was the shooter?
Why did he shoot Ruff?
How many times did he shoot Ruff and where?
What does Ruff’s autopsy and toxicology report say?
Officials say a grand jury found the shooter’s use of deadly force defensible. Why?
Was the shooter defending himself or another person? And from what?
Did Ruff have a weapon?
The public still doesn’t know.
The Denton Police Department stated at the time that the Aug. 9 shooting followed an altercation between the shooter and Ruff. The shooter was with his family at the time, police said, and none of them knew Ruff.
The shooter remained on the scene and cooperated with the investigation, the department reported. Officers detained the shooter for questioning but later released him. He was never arrested.
Officials then and since have shared few specific details about what led to the shooting. The case went before a Denton County grand jury, which declined to indict the shooter on any charges.
The city of Denton maintains it should be able to keep all records of fact about this case out of the public’s hands.
The Denton Record-Chronicle has made sweeping records requests for documents and video footage related to Ruff’s killing.
The Record-Chronicle also made a request for Ruff’s autopsy report. The Denton County District Attorney’s Office objected to the release of the report.
The city of Denton appealed the Record-Chronicle’s request to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office for an opinion in October. The city told the Attorney General’s Office that the records in Ruff’s shooting are not of concern to the public.
The attorney general ruled in January that the city should release records pursuant to the Record-Chronicle‘s request.
“People want to know, ‘What’s going on in my downtown square? Is it safe? How have police responded to the situation?’” said Kelley Shannon, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. “All of this is about transparency and the public’s right to know. … The most enlightened police departments around the state understand that transparency is super important. It’s what builds public trust.”
Formed in 1978, the foundation seeks to protect Texas’ open records law and inform journalists, attorneys, public officials and citizens about rights to government records.
The records in Ruff’s shooting are of concern to the public, the Attorney General’s Office asserts.
As of Wednesday, the city had yet to release any records about Ruff’s shooting to the Record-Chronicle.
The city filed a lawsuit in late February against the attorney general requesting that the records sought by the Record-Chronicle be temporarily and permanently blocked from release.
The city, using in-house attorneys, is de facto using taxpayer money to withhold the records from the public.
A city spokesperson said Denton is committed to transparency but is seeking court guidance to clarify the city’s obligations under recent legislative changes to the Texas Public Information Act, not clarification on “the merits of the underlying facts.”
The Denton Police Department deferred to the city and declined to provide further comment.
A municipal government suing the attorney general is not unheard of, Shannon said, but it is not very common.
“Usually, a lawsuit is going to come in over other types of records,” Shannon said. “Maybe a business contract or some decision-making correspondence. It’s a little more unusual for a government to sue the AG over something like this.”
Police records make up a large portion of the types of records requested by members of the public, she said.
It is important, Shannon said, that the public have access to police records in addition to department press releases and media interviews.
“You shouldn’t have to just rely on, ‘Pretty please sit down with me and talk to me because you won’t give me records,’” Shannon said. “Those records are the facts, and what you’re after is the facts, not somebody else’s interpretation of the facts.”
What have local law enforcement officials said about Ruff’s shooting?
The on-scene investigation
The Police Department issued a press releases with some basic information about the shooting the afternoon it happened and again on Aug. 13.
The department stated that dispatchers received multiple 911 calls reporting a shooting at about 12:10 p.m.
“A male patron,” the shooter, who was with his family, was in an altercation with Ruff.
The altercation started on a sidewalk in front of a business in the 100 block of West Hickory Street and continued on the sidewalk where Ruff was shot in the 200 block of West Hickory.
Medics transported Ruff to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead at about 12:37 p.m. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds.
The shooter remained on the scene and cooperated with police in the investigation, the department reported.
After the grand jury declined to indict Ruff’s shooter on Sept. 30, Denton Police Department officials agreed to speak with the Record-Chronicle over the phone.
Mike Christian, deputy chief of the Criminal Investigations Bureau, and Amy Cunningham, public information liaison, provided the following information:
Neither the shooter nor his family had ever met or interacted with Ruff before this incident, Christian and Cunningham said.
The on-scene investigation lasted at least three or four hours, Christian said. The shooter was detained for questioning but later released.
When asked why the department would not publicly name the shooter, Christian said the only reasons for releasing a person’s name are because upon arrest it becomes public record, or because it would aid in locating that suspect.
In Ruff’s shooting, Cunningham said, detectives always knew the shooter’s identity and never placed him under arrest nor charged him with a crime.
Therefore, Cunningham said, the department will not release the shooter’s name or other identifying information about him.
Cunningham did confirm that the shooter is a Denton County resident but said she would not confirm what city.
The shooter is not a licensed peace officer, Cunningham said in October, and never has been. He has no affiliation with the Denton Police Department, she said.
The shooter had no prior arrests or convictions for any felony offenses. He had never previously fired a gun at another person, to Cunningham and Christian’s knowledge.
Ruff was also not convicted of any violent or felony offenses in Texas, according to Texas Department of Public Safety records.
When asked about whether Ruff pursued the shooter or the shooter pursued Ruff, Cunningham said, “Clearly, they, together, went from one spot to another spot.”
Investigative aftermath
After the Record-Chronicle requested Ruff’s autopsy report, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office indicated in an email that medical examiners performed an autopsy and a toxicology analysis on Ruff.
The Medical Examiner’s Office contacted the Denton County District Attorney’s Office, which objected to the release of the records and requested an opinion from the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
The Attorney General’s Office ruled Tuesday that the Medical Examiner’s Office could withhold the records.
In the second week of September, Christian said, the department turned over all of the evidence it collected to the Denton County District Attorney’s Office.
The District Attorney’s Office presented the case to the grand jury, Christian said, as opposed to the Police Department presenting it. Murder was the only charge the grand jury could deliberate on.
Grand juries in Texas are conducted in total secrecy, and jurors are forbidden from disclosing any information about their deliberations.
In Denton County, grand juries are composed of 12 everyday citizens randomly called to serve via driver’s license selection. They serve one day a week, hearing anywhere from 70 to 100 cases weekly for a term of three months.
The grand jury members who heard evidence in Ruff’s shooting started serving their term in July.
For the first one or two sessions, the jurors receive presentations on different laws. The District Attorney’s Office provides educational materials on laws. This includes information about legal defenses to murder.
There are no limits on how long a grand jury can review a case or deliberate, First Assistant District Attorney Jamie Beck said.
Nine of the 12 grand jurors must find that there is probable cause that a person committed a crime. It is the lowest threshold for burden of proof.
Once a grand jury declines to indict a person, Beck said, the case usually ends there. However, if new evidence comes to light, prosecutors can try to indict the person again.
Seeing as the police had no questions as to who the shooter was in Ruff’s case, Beck said it is fair to say the grand jury’s decision to indict or not indict hinged more on whether his use of deadly force was justified. However, Beck said neither she nor anyone else besides the jurors were in the deliberations room.
“That would just be my opinion,” Beck said. “The evidence is the evidence, and whatever the grand jury — I have no idea. But, I think a logical conclusion is this wasn’t a ‘whodunit.’”
When asked if the shooter was defending himself or a third party, Cunningham said:
“Ultimately, it’d be a question you’d have to ask the grand jury. … We had previously released that the shooter was with his family when this all happened. So, whether the grand jury determined he was defending himself, therefore, no bill, or if it was determined he was defending himself and his family, or just defending his family, therefore, no bill — that’s why it’s kind of a question for the grand jury.”
For an individual to justifiably use deadly force, that person must reasonably believe that the deadly force is immediately necessary to protect oneself or another from unlawful, imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.
Unlawful imminent threats can include murder, aggravated kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery or aggravated robbery.
When asked if Ruff was engaging in any criminal behavior that would make the shooter legally justified in shooting him, Cunningham gave the following response:
“As we shared, there was an altercation that led up to the shooting. Ultimately, when our homicide detectives are assigned to this case, they’re looking at what happened before, during and after the shooting to piece together as much information as possible. They weren’t looking at Jon Ruff as being the victim to determine if there was an offense at that moment. … That’s not what our detectives were doing. So, it’s difficult to answer that question beyond that there was an altercation between those two parties, followed by the fatal shooting.”
People can openly carry and conceal carry firearms in public places in Denton, such as the downtown Square, Christian said, barring businesses that prohibit it.
A city ordinance prohibits discharging a firearm within Denton city limits. If someone discharges a firearm in city limits for what is later determined to be a legally defensible reason, Christian said, that legal defense trumps the city’s ordinance.
“We don’t feel that there’s anything, based on this case, that there’s any danger to the community,” Christian said. “We feel that people could go to the Square and enjoy themselves and shop and partake in the things that the Square or anywhere else in the city has to offer.”
Cunningham added: “We continue to have a visible police presence downtown and throughout our city as much as we can. Again, like we said from the beginning, this was an isolated incident, and like [Deputy Chief] Christian said, we don’t feel there was an ongoing threat to the community.”
What does the city’s spokesperson, its letter of argument and its lawsuit say about why it should not have to release records in Ruff’s shooting?
The city’s lawsuit states that the city is asking that all records pursuant to the Record-Chronicle’s requests about the shooting be exempt from public disclosure.
This includes records like incident reports, officer body-worn camera footage, crime scene photos and statements from the shooter, his family, Ruff’s family and a minor.
In a letter to the Attorney General’s Office in October, the city states it believes the records in Ruff’s shooting contain “highly intimate and embarrassing” information about an individual.
