Three weeks after Uvalde school massacre, many Texans fight to keep focus on changing gun laws
Three weeks after an 18-year-old gunman shot and killed 19 children and two teachers, wounding 17 others, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, local law enforcement has gone silent on its investigation. Despite daily requests for comment from media, and police records seeking insight into what happened and didn’t happen that day, officers have done an about-face in the last week. They’re refusing to share further details about their response, leaving community members confused, frustrated and angry without anyone taking accountability.
“We’ve all seen the initial response to be failures on all levels — system failures, communication failures and more,” Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat who represents Uvalde, told Yahoo News. “For 45 minutes, we’ve seen the police not follow protocol, and we deserve better.”
Gutierrez has been one of the most outspoken critics of the collective response to the mass shooting — calling out responding officers, Republicans in the state, Gov. Greg Abbott and the National Rifle Association. Nearly a month after the massacre, Gutierrez says, the shooting’s impact has led to a lack of trust in law enforcement among Uvalde residents.
“That lack of trust is based less on the errors and omissions and more on the fact that no one is speaking up,” he added. “There is no transparency and no truth. When you can't own up to your truths and say you failed and let me know how you failed ... then you will have problems.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/three-weeks-after-uvalde-school-massacre-texans-fight-to-keep-focus-on-changing-gun-laws-190810566.html
