Remember the tape of Houston Police Officers beating teen Chad Holley? Officers only receive misdemeanor charges and local TV station faces silence when asking about grand jury

Houston, Texas

It's now infamous, the video detailing the beating of a burglary susupect by HPD officers. The district attorney fought its release. Now the courthouse doesn't want you to know who was on the grand jury.

The video stunned the city. Four Houston cops await trial.

The criminal charge in the Holley case is official oppression. That's just a misdemeanor.

"If I wear a uniform and I come into your store and make you give me a hamburger because I'm in uniform and me beating a suspect who is handcuffed and that gets the same charge -- I think everybody in Houston should be appalled of that," said Rev. DZ Coffield, the president of the Houston NAACP.

Joe Larsen is a lawyer specializing in the public's right to know.

"The names of the grand jurors are announced in open court when they are empanelled," Larsen said.

But after Houston’s KTRK-TV asked, the district attorney's office notified the judge over the grand jury, Vanessa Velasquez.

Two days after our request, the judge issued an order barring any county employee from releasing the names. The DA's office now says its hands are now tied. The names of the grand jurors could be secret forever.

"I'm extremely dismayed. I think this subverts the Public Information Act on its face," Larsen said.

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