Lauren Moye, FISM News
On May 24, an 18-year-old shooter walked into Robb Elementary School and murdered 19 children and two teachers. The national outrage over the incident and outpouring of support for the victim’s families made Uvalde, Texas a well-known town across America.
While law enforcement officials who responded to the incident were initially hailed as heroes, that sentiment quickly changed when reports that multiple officers were on the scene for more than an hour before a border patrol agent breached the classroom and killed the assailant. Now, the town is taking more heat for refusing records requests and hiring attorneys in determent of the media’s pursuit of what took place that day.
Last week, the city of Uvalde hired attorneys at Denton Navarro Rocha Bernal & Zech to fight media requests. Citing the Texas Public Information Act, the attorneys wrote to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton with 52 reasons they claim frees the city from any obligation to publicly release records surrounding the attack and subsequent response. The letter details that 148 requests have been made by different news organizations from May 25 through June 7, according to a Daily Mail exclusive.
“The City claims that the requested information is not information that is collected, assembled, or maintained under a law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business by a governmental body or for a governmental body or is excepted from disclosure,” wrote attorney Cynthia Trevino. The attorneys further asked Paxton to determine what requested information the city is required to share.
These media requests include records on Pete Arredondo, the police chief on the date of the shooting who now serves on the town council.
Arredondo has denied he was aware that there were still children, including those injured and in need of medical attention, still alive and near the shooter. 911 records showed that 4th graders were calling for help, including the request of one child who took a phone from her dead teacher’s body.
Arredondo also denied in a Thursday interview that he was the one who issued a wait order to officers. He told the Texas Tribune that he was in the hallway during that period of delay where he “called for assistance and asked for an extraction tool” to enter the classroom. According to the interview, Arredondo did not view himself as the incident commander on the scene and did not even have a radio on him while waiting in the school hallway outside of the classroom.
This interview stands in stark contradiction to Texas Department of Public Safety reports that effectively pinned the blame on Arredondo. DPS Director Steven McCraw previously said treating the incident as a barricaded suspect “was the wrong decision, period.”
Some are concerned the legal loopholes pushed by the attorneys might mean that even victims’ families will be prevented from accessing records.
“They could make that decision; they shouldn’t have that choice,” said State Representative Joe Moody. The Democratic congressman has attempted multiple times to close the loophole since 2017 according to NPR. He added, “To understand what our government is doing should not be that difficult — and right now it is very difficult.”
The U.S. Justice Department has announced they will probe the delayed law-enforcement response. Meanwhile, national outrage from the event pushed federal lawmakers to reach a gun violence agreement, marking the first new bipartisan bill of its kind to be presented in thirty years within the Senate.