This article first appeared at ProPublica and the Texas Tribune. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Explain it to me like Iâm an elementary school student who deserves the absolute truth
why was this so poorly handled?
who failed to do their jobs
⌠and are there any genuine âBad Guysâ - other than the ones who were frozen with fear and rendered incompetent ⌠and the ones trying to cover their own ass & blame others ?
Nobody in the Texas State Police lifted a finger to help poor Hispanic kids in a rural school. Wonder why? Because the community was rural, the kids were mostly working class or they were Hispanic and their parents might have voted Democrat? Inquiring minds want to know.
From the beginning, Governor Abbott has pushed back against any suggestion that the failure was the stateâs failure. Push it down onto the local police. Clearly the state police should have taken charge, but doing that means also taking responsibility. The failure is the stateâs failure, from the very top. Thatâs the scandal here - itâs on Abbott.
Every LEO in Texas should hang their head in shame over the handling of the shootings at Uvalde
Those directly involved should never again work anywhere in law enforcement. They should be thoroughly investigated and charged as appropriate.
The shooter had a powerful weapon capable of rapid fire. The police knew that.
Itâs hard to get past the idea that the police were deterred by fear of that weapon.
No one can be sure about these things, but I think the police probably would have gone in sooner if the shooter had been holding a revolver instead of an assault rifle.
What I canât still wrap my head around is the fact that Pete Arredondo thought he could continue on being on chief of the school districtâs police force, and a member of Uvaldeâs City Council.
And I realize that Texas is a big state, but damn they have so many law enforcement agencies. Where I live I have my city police, then thereâs the county police, and the state troopers. The county police do partner with some of the smaller cities and act as the local police. And since Texas has an international border I get why some of those agencies have their own law enforcement units, but still too many cooks in the kitchen and they still couldnât deliver a proper meal.
Thatâs in part because DPS leaders are controlling which records get released to the public and carefully shaping a narrative that casts local law enforcement as incompetent.
That uh doesnât seem like a stretch.
Also, I work with overlapping governments so not at all surprised for power (and responsibility) to be concentrated locally and diffuse outward.
That said, there is no earthly reason to have a school district PD and this one demonstrated why they really should not exist, they both do nothing and stop other agencies from doing anything. Wow.
Welcome to âsmall town politicsâ in Texas - or any state.
In most local governments the distribution of power and the control of funds is intoxicating and always concentrated to a small group.
In small towns, particularly when there is a small middle class and more lower income residents who are too busy just keeping food on the table, those who have amassed some wealth (larger AG landowners) insist on being in control - just like it has been forever.
Unfortunately, many of them are not always experienced or worldly enough to bring good government to their community. And, they donât like any interference from the outside.
The results often surface publicly but Uvalde is a most horrific example.