A brief Uvalde roundup one year after the massacre

Just a few links for you…

A year after Uvalde’s school massacre, healing remains elusive.

In the year since 19 children and two teachers were killed inside their classrooms at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the search for healing has been elusive.

Many victims’ relatives have said healing cannot begin without closure. But closure has been impossible, because 12 months later there are still many unresolved questions about what happened that day — most stemming from the failed police response. It took officers an agonizing 77 minutes to enter the classroom and kill the gunman. It was more than an hour during which some of the victims slowly bled to death.

Details about precisely what happened, which victims might have survived if police had acted faster, and why the law enforcement response failed so miserably are the subject of ongoing local, state and federal investigations. Many surviving families are pinning their hopes for closure on their findings. Others are skeptical. But in the meantime, much of the community is suspended in its grief, grasping still for a narrative of what happened on that tragic day, and searching for ways to cope.

A year after the Uvalde school shooting, officers who botched response face few consequences.

In the year since the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, much of the blame for law enforcement’s decision to wait more than an hour to confront the gunman has centered on the former chief of the school district’s small police force.

But a Washington Post investigation has found that the costly delay was also driven by the inaction of an array of senior and supervising law enforcement officers who remain on the job and had direct knowledge a shooting was taking place inside classrooms but failed to swiftly stop the gunman.

The Post’s review of dozens of hours of body camera videos, post-shooting interviews with officers, audio from dispatch communications and law enforcement licensing records identified at least seven officers who stalled even as evidence mounted that children were still in danger. Some were the first to arrive, while others were called in for their expertise.

All are still employed by the same agencies they worked for that day. One was commended for his actions that day.

For many families of victims in the small Texas town, promises from top state law enforcement and government officials to hold all those responsible for the 77-minute delay in stopping the shooter today feel empty. Instead, they have learned to live alongside officers who faced no repercussions and remain in positions of authority in the community.

The officers shop at the same grocery stores as the families. They umpire weekly softball games. They live in the same neighborhoods. In some cases, they are blood relatives.

“When we see them, they put their heads down,” said Felicha Martinez, whose son was killed in the attack and whose cousin is a police officer who responded to the shooting. “They know they did wrong and wish they could go back and do it over again.”

Hearts In Turmoil: Uvalde Families’ Endless Quest For Gun Control And Answers.

A year ago, an 18-year-old kid with an assault rifle killed nineteen fourth-graders and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The gunman, Salvador Ramos, massacred the students while officers waited outside for more than an hour before engaging him. It’s been a year since the shooting, and families of the victims are still grieving, whilst fighting for gun control and answers.

The Robb Elementary School shooting is the third-deadliest school shooting in the U.S. after the Sandy Hook Elementary Massacre in 2012 and the Virginia Tech Massacre in 2007.

In this past year, the victim’s families have fought for new restrictions and more transparency, but the government presented resistance to cooperating.

After the shooting, Governor Greg Abbott publicly condemned the massacre, but instead of addressing Texas’ mass shooting problem, he blamed the Uvalde massacre on mental health – while at the same time cutting a lot of mental health spending.

At the state Capitol in Texas, families showed up repeatedly to push a bill that would have raised the age to buy semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, but the bill barely got a vote and never made it out of committee.

On the front lines of the fight was State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, representing the Uvalde district, who spent the last five months trying to pass bills that would restrict young adults’ access to semi-automatic rifles. Guiterrez’s final attempt -amending another gun bill to raise the minimum age – failed just days before the one-year anniversary of the Robb Elementary massacre.

Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio, activists blast lawmakers’ inaction on guns.

Gun-control advocates joined State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, at the Texas Capitol to condemn lawmakers’ inaction on a bill that would have raised the minimum age required to purchase a semi-automatic rifle to 21.

Gutierrez, whose district includes Uvalde, championed the proposal and a raft of other gun reforms. He’s argued the measures are necessary after last year’s massacre at Robb Elementary School, in which a shooter claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers.

Families of those who died at Robb repeatedly pressed the Texas Legislature to pass a proposal this session raising the purchase age for semi-automatic rifles.

“Congratulations, you just told every single Texan and every single visitor to Texas that you don’t give a damn about the families of Uvalde,” Manuel Rizo said at Tuesday’s live-streamed gathering. Rizo is loved one of Jackie Cazares, 9, who died at Robb Elementary.

Uvalde and Santa Fe families, bonded by unthinkable tragedy, unite in Texas gun reform efforts.

Uvalde and Santa Fe are about 315 miles from each other, but these residents are like family. Cross and Hart have spent long nights together trading stories, sharing meals and advocating at the Texas Capitol. They comment on each other’s social media posts and text each other memes.

They are part of a growing group of Texans touched by gun violence, connected by trauma, grief and, in some cases, a new calling to advocate for change.

“Unfortunately, we’re a part of this club that nobody wants to be a part of,” Cross said. “When you have a grief like this, the average person doesn’t understand. You can’t grasp the notion of how much pain that is.”

Santa Fe survivors don’t know everyone in Uvalde, and the same is true in reverse. There’s no “mass shooting phonebook,” Hart said — and she sometimes wishes there was a better way to connect with others across Texas who have been in their shoes: families in El Paso, Sutherland Springs, Midland-Odessa and now Allen.

It’s a network established by meeting at political events or asking around for someone’s number after seeing them in the news, Hart said.

She first connected with Cross and his wife, Nikki, over the phone last June, and they met in person for the first time in August at an Astros game in Houston. The team had invited the Uvalde families out for “Uvalde Strong Day,” so Hart bought a ticket.

Hart met some of the other Uvalde parents that day, too. She talked to Kimberly Garcia, the mother of 10-year-old Amerie Jo Garza, and “instantly connected” with her. Amerie was a Girl Scout, just like Hart’s daughter.

1 year after the tragedy in Uvalde, the memory of the 21 victims lives on.

On May 24, 2022, a gunman killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. It was the worst school shooting in Texas history.

The children loved TikTok and baseball, Pokémon and Starbucks. They had dreams of becoming a lawyer, a veterinarian, a marine biologist, an art teacher, a cop.

The teachers died trying to save their students. One was a “diamond in the rough” who loved CrossFit, running and biking.

Another was a caregiver who supported her family and friends in everything they did. Her husband, a devoted father, died of a heart attack on May 26 after placing flowers at her memorial.

This is who they were.

I had a hard time reading the second to last story. I didn’t even try to read the last one. You can read or not read whichever ones you want. There were many more out there on Wednesday as well. I’m a small bit of hope, a large bit of rage and frustration, and a medium bit of despair about it all.

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