Uvalde city officials release 2022 mass shooting data

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The city of Uvalde released a series of documents related to the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting on Saturday, ending a more than two-year legal battle with nearly two dozen news organizations, including The Texas Tribune and ProPublica.

The footage includes body and dashboard camera footage from Uvalde police officers, documents between city officials and hundreds of audio files from local police communications and emergency calls to city dispatchers, as well as those made by witnesses. The city is the first government entity to release records related to the Uvalde shooting, agreeing to a settlement with news organizations that sued for the footage. Other state and local government agencies continue to struggle to publicly release their related records.

This is a developing story that will be updated as ProPublica and the Tribune review the documents.

Laura Prather, representing the news agencies, called the publication “a step toward transparency” and noted that the Uvalde School District, Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office and Texas Department of Public Safety are still fighting to suppress the publication of materials related to the shooting and law enforcement response.

“Transparency is necessary to help Uvalde heal and to enable all of us to understand what happened and learn how to prevent future tragedies,” said Prather, chair of the media law department at Haynes Boone.

Nineteen fourth-graders and two teachers were killed in the deadliest school shooting in Texas history. Nearly 400 officers from about two dozen local, state and federal law enforcement agencies waited 77 minutes to confront the teenage shooter in the classroom. A state House committee investigating the response found that the classroom was likely unlocked the entire time.

ProPublica and the Tribune previously obtained materials related to the botched response, including body-worn camera footage and more than 200 interviews that law enforcement officers, witnesses and victims gave to the Texas Rangers, the DPS unit that initially investigated the shooting and police response.

Overall, the leaked documents revealed widespread and previously unknown failings, which the newsroom detailed in a detailed document published last year in partnership with FRONTLINE, as well as in an accompanying investigation that was part of an ongoing series on the Uvalde shooting over the past two years.

The newsroom’s investigation revealed that while children in Uvalde were prepared after what they learned during an active shooter drill, many of the officers who responded to the scene were not. Many had not had active shooter training in years.

The U.S. Justice Department has sharply criticized the delayed response and said that if officers had followed common training practices, some victims might have survived.

In addition to the lawsuit against the city of Uvalde, the news corporation also sued the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office, Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Although two district judges in Texas ruled in favor of the newspapers in both cases and ordered the government entities to release their records, all three of the latter agencies appealed those decisions. That has delayed the full release of materials related to that day, which families of several victims have sought.

The city said in a statement on Saturday that it wants to comply with the court’s order and end the legal battle.

“In the interest of serving taxpayers, the Uvalde community and ensuring compliance with the (Texas Public Information Act), the city is fulfilling its obligation to provide appropriate records that have been properly redacted under Texas law pursuant to the court’s order to terminate this lawsuit,” the statement read. “The city is committed to protecting privacy rights and complying with the court’s order.”

Former Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, who is now a Republican candidate for the Texas House of Representatives, said in a telephone interview Saturday morning that other government entities covered by the lawsuit should follow the city’s example.

“The only way we’re going to know what really happened is if everybody puts out their records, puts them out there,” McLaughlin said. “Mistakes were made, there’s no denying that. Take it on the chin.”

Representatives from the sheriff’s office, school district and DPS did not immediately respond to phone calls or emails Saturday.

The mistakes in Uvalde were many. Law enforcement failed to establish a clear chain of command and no officer took over as incident commander. Although former school police chief Pete Arredondo was designated as such in the district’s active shooter plan, he later denied responsibility for that role.

More than two years after the shooting, Uvalde residents say they still feel there is no accountability for what happened, as well as unanswered questions about who was to blame and why law enforcement’s response was so inadequate.

The results of the U.S. Justice Department investigation, released in January, largely confirmed ProPublica and Tribune’s findings of a failed response and disparity in law enforcement preparedness not only in Uvalde but across the country.

The Justice Department’s assessment recommended that every officer in the country receive at least eight hours of training on how to respond to an active shooter each year.

“If law enforcement had followed generally accepted practices in an active shooter situation and intervened immediately to stop the shooter, lives would have been saved and people would have survived,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference earlier this year.

In May, the city of Uvalde reached a settlement with the victims’ families, agreeing to overhaul police training and hiring policies. The agency also agreed to pay $2 million in restitution.

The victims’ families are seeking millions of dollars more from other government agencies and private companies in numerous ongoing lawsuits.

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