guns

A brief Uvalde roundup one year after the massacre

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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.

You didn’t get your hopes up about that “raise the age” bill, did you?

May 11th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

Psych.

The unexpected elation felt this week by gun control advocates and families of Uvalde shooting victims dissolved to despair Tuesday, when a bill that would raise the age to legally purchase semi-automatic rifles lost its newfound momentum and was left off the Texas House’s agenda ahead of a key deadline.

Barring an unexpected development, the delay likely ends the bill’s chances of becoming law.

The proposal has long faced stiff odds in a state that has regularly loosened gun restrictions in recent years. But on Monday, in the aftermath of the deadly shooting in an Allen shopping mall, a House committee unexpectedly advanced the legislation in an 8-5 vote that included two Republicans supporting it.

That left little time for the bill to be added to the House’s calendar, however. The final day the House can pass bills is Thursday, and the chamber’s agenda must be approved 36 hours ahead of when they convene. That creates a de facto deadline of around 10 p.m. Tuesday for the measure to be placed on the calendar.

When that hour arrived Tuesday night, House Bill 2744 remained off the list.

The measure’s supporters, particularly parents of children who died at Robb Elementary in Uvalde who have been advocating for it all session, pushed until the end. Minutes before 10 p.m., a small group stood outside the House chamber holding signs and chanting and calling for the bill to be heard on the House floor. Even then, they could be heard faintly from the back of the chamber.

“2-7-4-4,” they yelled. “Put this bill on the floor.”

There were less than a dozen of them, but they could be heard inside the House chamber — their chants carrying loudly enough that Capitol staffers closed the doors to the second-floor viewing gallery.

Perhaps the loudest was Brett Cross, whose 10-year-old son Uziyah Garcia was shot to death by an AR-15 in one of Robb’s classrooms. When the clock passed 10 p.m., a few Democrats left the chamber and hugged him. Soon after, witnesses in the Capitol said, a Department of Public Safety trooper approached with a decibel monitor, informed him he was being too loud and escorted him out of the building. Cross continued chanting the bill’s number as he left.

“This is just another fucking attempt to slow and stop us,” Cross said on Twitter. “2744 may have died tonight, but we will never stop!

“Texas fucked with the wrong parents!”

\Another parent, Kimberly Mata-Rubio, who lost her 10-year-old daughter Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio in the shooting, vowed to travel to the districts of House Speaker Dade Phelan, Calendars Committee Chair Dustin Burrows and Select Committee on Community Safety Chair Ryan Guillen and “share Lexi’s story, and the disrespect shown to Uvalde families.”

“This isn’t over,” she said. “We will regroup, re-strategize and come back stronger.”

[…]

As it became clear Tuesday afternoon that the bill was again in danger, proponents voiced their frustration. Some left signs urging its passage outside the Calendars Committee’s meeting room. Others protested outside the office of Rep. Ryan Guillen, R-Rio Grande City, the chair of the committee that advanced the bill Monday.

Guillen could not be immediately reached for comment about whether the committee report had been sent to the calendars committee or whether it would be before the deadline.

“I’m sickened that HB 2744 will not be brought to a full House vote,” said Rep. Jarvis Johnson, a Houston Democrat who voted to advance the bill Monday as a member of the select House committee. “For once, the legislature seemed to listen to its constituents & do the right thing after getting this bill out of committee.”

Lawmakers could use other approaches to revive the proposal. But advocates are realistic that the measure will most likely ultimately fail. Even if it were to pass the House — a tall request — it would still need to advance through a Senate that’s perhaps even more skeptical of the idea.

See here for the background. This was as unsurprising as a genital-obsessed youth pastor turning out to be a sex predator, just to pick an analogy at random. I have nothing but love and empathy for the Uvalde parents, who have done everything they can to get the gun-humping Republicans to Do Something about all the murdered children our state keeps producing, but that’s too tall a task for anyone. The only thing we can do is vote them out. We did get a couple of the committee members to support this incremental step forward, so there has to be some room for persuasion. Until such time as we can grow enough Democrats to win on sheer numbers, we’re going to have to persuade some Republican voters to switch sides in at least some races because of the gun issue – or the abortion issue, or the marijuana issue, or the gambling issue, whatever may work for them – if we ever want to change how things are done here. The next chance to do that is next year. Same story, next election. The Chron and the Current have more.

Reactions to Allen

May 9th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

There’s nothing I can say about the weekend massacre in Allen that hasn’t been said many times by many people. My heart is broken for the victims and their families, and my rage is ever-stoked by the sheer indifference exhibited by our so-called leaders. I just have a couple of things to note here in partial response.

Uvalde families have another reason to be angry.

Democrats and relatives of Texas mass shooting victims lambasted the state’s GOP leaders over the weekend after they again rejected gun restrictions in the wake of another massacre.

A gunman wielding what appeared to be an assault-style rifle killed eight people on Saturday afternoon at Allen Premium Outlets, a mall in a suburb about 20 miles north of Dallas. He injured seven others, three of whom are in critical condition. The victims included children as young as 5.

The shooting occurred less than a week after sheriff’s deputies in San Jacinto County reported that a lone gunman armed with an AR-15-style weapon killed five people at a neighbors’ house.

Republicans expressed grief over the mall shooting, offering prayers and condolences to families who lost loved ones. They praised law enforcement for responding and killing the shooter quickly, but they did not address the weapon he used.

”They don’t have any answers to this,” said Manuel Rizo, who lost his 9-year-old niece, Jacklyn “Jackie” Cazares, in last year’s mass shooting at a Uvalde elementary school.

The attack at Robb Elementary was also carried out by a lone gunman armed with an assault-style rifle. The shooter bought his gun days after he turned 18, prompting calls from victims’ families to raise the age for purchasing the weapons in Texas. Republican state lawmakers have declined.

“They’re just going to ignore the facts, issue their thoughts and prayers, go through their checklist and hope that this goes away,” Rizo said.

I get emails from the Dallas Morning News with daily digests and breaking news and stuff like that. Here are the contents of two of those breaking news alerts on Monday. First one:

The Houston office of the South Korean consulate confirmed Monday that Cho Kyu Song, 37, Kang Shin Young, 35, and their child were killed. The child’s age was not immediately clear.

According to a letter from New Song Church, based in Carrollton, a 5-year-old child of the couple survived. The child was injured and was being treated at a hospital, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported.

And the second one:

A security guard, an engineer, 3 children among the Allen mall shooting victims

Two Cox Elementary students, fourth-grader Daniela Mendoza and second-grader Sofia Mendoza, were killed Saturday.

Their mother, Ilda, remains in critical condition, according to an email from Wylie ISD Superintendent David Vinson.

Here’s a profile of the victims from the Trib. Just so we all know who we’re talking about here. Who we’re losing every time one of these mass shootings happens.

Later in the day, we got this news.

In a surprise move days after the Allen mall shooting and hours before a key legislative deadline, a Texas House committee on Monday advanced a bill that would raise the age to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles.

The bill faces an uphill climb to becoming state law, but the vote marked a milestone for the proposal that relatives of Uvalde shooting victims have been pushing for months.

Several relatives of children who were killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting last year sobbed when the committee voted 8-5 to send it to the House floor. Republican state Reps. Sam Harless and Justin Holland joined with Democrats on the House Community Safety Select Committee to advance the bill.

Less than two hours earlier, some of the relatives of Uvalde victims had urged the committee chair, Rep. Ryan Guillen. R-Rio Grande, to give House BIll 2744 a vote before a key deadline Monday.

“One year ago today, my daughter had her communion. About a month later she was buried in that same dress,” Javier Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter Jacklyn was killed in the Uvalde shooting, said during an emotional press conference. “Mr. Guillen, and anybody else who is stopping this bill from passing, sad to say but more blood will be on your hands.”

Monday marks the last day House bills can be voted out of committee in the lower chamber. House bills that don’t meet that deadline face increasingly difficult odds at becoming law, though there are some avenues through which measures left in committees could be revived.

HB 2744, filed by Democratic Rep. Tracy King, whose district includes Uvalde, was debated before the House select committee last month during a hearing in which relatives of Uvalde victims shared emotional accounts of lives torn asunder by gun violence.

Monday’s legislative deadline falls two days after a gunman in Allen, a Dallas suburb of about 100,000 people, killed eight shoppers at an outdoor mall with AR-15-style rifle — the same type of weapon used by the gunman in Uvalde, where killed 19 children and two teachers were killed.

Because the man identified as the gunman in Allen was 33, raising the age limit for semi-automatic rifle purchases likely wouldn’t have kept that gunman from purchasing such a weapon. But Saturday’s shooting renewed calls for tightening some gun laws in a state whose lawmakers have loosened firearm restrictions despite repeated mass shootings.

That is true. You know what else is true? None of the false promises made by Greg Abbott about “mental health”, and none of the faux-security “school hardening” bills – you know, the ones that put more restrictions on doors than on guns, those bills – would have done anything to deter this shooter, either. It’s going to take an actual commitment to address the problem, and that begins with having a government in place that sees these shootings as problems. See what I mean about there not being anything to say that hasn’t been said before?

This Twitter thread takes you through the action yesterday that led to the committee vote on HB2744. Here’s a quote for you:

Rep. Guillen, who chairs the House Select Committee on Community Safety where HB 2744 is pending, just told reporters he is now considering having a vote on the bill. When asked what changed, he said “Nothing”.

That’s turncoat Republican Ryan Guillen speaking there. I have nothing at this point, either. Even if this bill makes it out of the House, there’s no way Dan Patrick gives it a vote in the Senate. High marks for trying, but the problem is bigger than this. DAily Kos has more.

UPDATE: Received the following statement in my inbox from Asian Texans for Justice:

“Instead of supporting what we’re asking for – gun safety legislation which 83% of AAPIs support, Texas statewide leaders are blaming mental health alone. The reality is that our state’s lax gun laws allowed someone who sympathizes with Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists to easily get a gun and kill and injure over a dozen people. We need the state legislature to take immediate action on gun reform that will make our communities safer, such as passing HB 2744, which would increase the age to buy a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21.

Asian Texans for Justice calls on local law enforcement to exhaust all measures to determine whether the gunman was truly a lone actor or if he worked in concert with other individuals or organizations who aided and abetted these horrendous actions.

We urge Governor Abbott and the Texas Legislature to focus their priorities on issues that better serve Asian and Pacific Islander Texans, and keep all Texans safe.”

I agree.

A brief but dismal legislative update

Apr 6th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

Just a few recent news stories, to give you an idea of what’s happening in the Legislative session, and why I have been avoiding it.

Item 1:

Republican Texas senators on Monday reversed themselves and voted against allowing transgender kids currently being treated with puberty blockers and hormone therapy to continue receiving such care.

That reversal essentially expanded Senate Bill 14’s proposed ban on transition-related care to include all transgender children — as outlined in the legislation’s original version. The chamber voted 19-12 along party lines Tuesday to give final approval to the broader version of the bill, which is priority legislation for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. SB 14 will now advance to the House.

Monday’s vote to expand the restrictions and advance the legislation came days after the GOP-controlled Senate agreed to allow kids already on puberty blockers and hormone therapy by early June to keep their access to those treatments. Major medical groups approve of such care and say it lessens higher rates of depression and suicide for trans youth.

Item 2:

The Texas Senate on Wednesday approved two bills aimed at restricting drag performances that children attend or see. One of them, Senate Bill 1601, would defund public libraries where drag queens are allowed to read to children. The other, Senate Bill 12, bars kids from drag shows if the performances are overly lewd and lascivious.

SB 1601 was approved in a 19-10 vote. SB 12, which is a priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick this session, was approved in a 20-11 vote. Both bills now head to the House.

Item 3:

A bill intended to rein in district attorneys who decline to pursue certain cases passed the Senate on Wednesday. The bill, a priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, is part of a larger effort to limit the power of elected prosecutors, especially in Texas’ largest, left-leaning counties.

Some district and county attorneys in Texas have said they will not prosecute people accused of violating the state’s near-total abortion bans. There’s also conflict over whether prosecutors will pursue allegations of election fraud, as well as cases involving first-time drug offenders or low-level theft.

Prosecutors have wide latitude to decide what cases their office will pursue. But conservative lawmakers have filed more than 30 bills intending to limit this “prosecutorial discretion.”

“Unfortunately, certain Texas prosecutors have joined a trend of adopting internal policies refusing to prosecute particular laws,” Sen. Joan Huffman, a Republican from Houston who authored the bill, said Tuesday. “These actions set a dangerous precedent and severely undermine the authority of the Legislature.”

Senate Bill 20, which passed the Senate in a 20-11 vote on Wednesday, is the first such bill to pass either chamber. Huffman and Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, authored the legislation.

SB 20 would prohibit prosecutors from adopting or enforcing a policy “under which the prosecuting attorney refuses to prosecute a class or type of criminal offense.” Such a policy would qualify as “official misconduct”; if a jury finds a prosecutor guilty of misconduct, a district judge can order them removed from office.

Currently, only a county resident can bring an allegation of misconduct against an elected prosecutor. But both chambers are considering separate legislation that would allow residents and prosecutors in neighboring counties, and the attorney general, to file charges of official misconduct.

Other bills would enable the attorney general to take on any cases rejected by a county prosecutor — or sue for tens of thousands of dollars for every day a prosecutor has a policy against pursuing certain cases.

The Texas District and County Attorneys Association has raised concerns about these bills, noting on their website that there is already a system in place for residents of a county to raise issues with their prosecutor — either through bringing misconduct claims or by voting them out at the next election.

State lawmakers trying to override prosecutorial discretion is “another attempt to exert statewide control over a traditionally local function,” Sandra Guerra Thompson, a professor of criminal law at the University of Houston Law Center, told The Texas Tribune. “We’re seeing a lot of that these days.”

Any or all of these bills could fail in the House, or get amended to be less awful. I wouldn’t count on it, but it could happen. Just note that these are among the top priorities of Dan Patrick.

And finally, speaking of Dan Patrick, Item 4:

During a Senate floor debate Tuesday supposedly about “protecting children,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick rebuked Sen. Roland Gutierrez for repeatedly mentioning gun violence. Sen. Gutierrez thought gun violence might be relevant to “protecting children,” especially since his Uvalde district is still recovering from the trauma of the school massacre that took the lives of 19 children and two adults.

The reason for the public rebuke? This debate about “protecting children” wasn’t about guns or violent crime. It was about the dangers of – drag shows. Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, has proposed legislation that would bar minors from attending drag shows.

When Hughes argued that his law, Senate Bill 12, would help “protect children,” Gutierrez countered: “Man, I’ll tell you, I’ve been all about this session about protecting children, my friend, and we haven’t done a whole lot of protecting children when it comes to guns and ammunition,” said Gutierrez.

The Senate gallery, which is open to the public, could be heard cheering, according to KVUE

Sen. Hughes looked “rattled” during the exchange, according to the Quorum Report.

But Lt. Gov. Patrick was quick to offer protection from the volley of words and came to Hughes’ rescue. Patrick scolded Gutierrez and announced that he would not be recognized to speak on the floor going forward if he could not limit his queries to the topic of protecting children (from drag shows).

“I appreciate your interest in protecting kids,” Sen. Gutierrez responded. “I sure would, could, use your support in protecting kids that are killed by gun violence in this state.”

As the Senate gallery cheered again, Lt. Gov. Patrick banged his gavel and warned that he would order the gallery cleared if there were another outburst.

“Sen. Gutierrez, I’m going to give you one more warning. That’s the last time,” Lt. Gov. Patrick said. “Stick to the topic, to the issues you’re asking questions on, or you will not be recognized in the future.”

Yes, how dare the Senator that represents Uvalde talk about guns in the context of protecting children? What was he thinking?

That’s your dismal legislative update for today. I hope to not have to provide more of these on other days.

We finally have a reason for the timid police response in Uvalde

Mar 21st, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

It was because the shooter was using an AR-15, and the cops didn’t want to get slaughtered.

Almost a year after Texas’ deadliest school shooting killed 19 children and two teachers, there is still confusion among investigators, law enforcement leaders and politicians over how nearly 400 law enforcement officers could have performed so poorly. People have blamed cowardice or poor leadership or a lack of sufficient training for why police waited more than an hour to breach the classroom and subdue an amateur 18-year-old adversary.

But in their own words, during and after their botched response, the officers pointed to another reason: They were unwilling to confront the rifle on the other side of the door.

A Texas Tribune investigation, based on police body cameras, emergency communications and interviews with investigators that have not been made public, found officers had concluded that immediately confronting the gunman would be too dangerous. Even though some officers were armed with the same rifle, they opted to wait for the arrival of a Border Patrol SWAT team, with more protective body armor, stronger shields and more tactical training — even though the unit was based more than 60 miles away.

“You knew that it was definitely an AR,” Uvalde Police Department Sgt. Donald Page said in an interview with investigators after the school shooting. “There was no way of going in. … We had no choice but to wait and try to get something that had better coverage where we could actually stand up to him.”

“We weren’t equipped to make entry into that room without several casualties,” Uvalde Police Department Detective Louis Landry said in a separate investigative interview. He added, “Once we found out it was a rifle he was using, it was a different game plan we would have had to come up with. It wasn’t just going in guns blazing, the Old West style, and take him out.”

Uvalde school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who was fired in August after state officials cast him as the incident commander and blamed him for the delay in confronting the gunman, told investigators the day after the shooting he chose to focus on evacuating the school over breaching the classroom because of the type of firearm the gunman used.

“We’re gonna get scrutinized (for) why we didn’t go in there,” Arredondo said. “I know the firepower he had, based on what shells I saw, the holes in the wall in the room next to his. … The preservation of life, everything around (the gunman), was a priority.”

None of the officers quoted in this story agreed to be interviewed by the Tribune.

That hesitation to confront the gun allowed the gunman to terrorize students and teachers in two classrooms for more than an hour without interference from police. It delayed medical care for more than two dozen gunshot victims, including three who were still alive when the Border Patrol team finally ended the shooting but who later died.

Mass shooting protocols adopted by law enforcement nationwide call on officers to stop the attacker as soon as possible. But police in other mass shootings — including at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida — also hesitated to confront gunmen armed with AR-15-style rifles.

Even if the law enforcement response had been flawless and police had immediately stopped the gunman, the death toll in Uvalde still would have been significant. Investigators concluded most victims were killed in the minutes before police arrived.

But in the aftermath of the shooting, there has been little grappling with the role the gun played. Texas Republicans, who control every lever of state government, have talked about school safety, mental health and police training — but not gun control.

There’s more, so go read the rest. That includes a note that the House committee report on the law enforcement response to the Uvalde massacre didn’t include any of these quotes from the officers present, and it also includes a deeply stupid and offensive quote from the deeply stupid and offensive Sen. Bob Hall. While the news of the cops’ hesitation to run into AR-15 fire is something we hadn’t heard before, the rest of this isn’t new at all. Mostly, we know what we’re not going to get from this Legislature and our state leaders. It’s just a matter of what we do about that.

Look, if we banned AR-15s and anything like them today and then began an aggressive program to buy them back and/or confiscate them, there would still be AR-15s and other guns like them out there. But there would be fewer of them, and that would lower the risk. If even the so-called “good guys with a gun” don’t want anything to do with a bad guy with an AR-15, then I don’t know what else we could do that might have the same effect. Like I said, it’s up to us. Daily Kos has more.

One small gun loophole may get closed

Mar 9th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Take your wins where you can find them.

Texas lawmakers are working to plug a gap in a 2009 law that was meant to keep people with a history of serious mental health issues from legally acquiring firearms.

Bipartisan legislation has been filed in the state House and Senate that would explicitly require courts to report information on involuntary mental health hospitalizations of juveniles age 16 and older after a ProPublica and Texas Tribune investigation revealed that they were being excluded from the national firearms background check system.

Under the current law, county and district clerks across the state are required to send information on court-ordered mental health hospitalizations to the Department of Public Safety. The state’s top law enforcement agency is charged with forwarding those records to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, known as NICS. Federally licensed dealers are required to check the system before they sell someone a firearm.

Elliott Naishtat, a former state lawmaker from Austin who authored the 2009 law, told the news organizations that he intended for it to apply to all Texans no matter their age. But following the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, the outlets discovered that local court clerks were not sharing that information for juveniles, either as a matter of policy or because they didn’t believe that they had to.

A bill by state Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston-area Republican, passed unanimously out of committee last week with bipartisan support.

The legislation aligns Texas with new federal reporting requirements and is “meant to make the background check more thorough and hence make our communities and schools safer,” Huffman at the committee hearing.

Congress passed gun reform legislation in June that includes a requirement that federal investigators check state databases for juvenile mental health records. But such checks would fail to reveal many court-ordered juvenile commitments in Texas because they are not currently being reported.

See here for the background. This is a small thing and it will have a small effect. It’s still better than not doing it, and as a proponent of the idea that effective gun control involves a lot of small, overlapping protections in order to be effective, I’m happy to see these small steps take place even as we pointedly ignore the larger ones. It’s still one piece we won’t have to fit in later, and it will do some good in the meantime. The story notes that Naishtat had been making some calls to his former colleagues urging them to close this loophole, and to whatever extent he had an effect I salute him, and Sen. Huffman as well.

UPDATE: The bill has now passed the Senate, the first bill to do so. It heads to the House next.

Three stories on Uvalde and gun control

Feb 19th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

First, a story about locks and why an obsession with locking school doors is not really going to improve safety.

In the aftermath of school shootings like the one in Uvalde, what can get overlooked is basic: Schools need doors that work and don’t require special knowledge or keys to secure; they need locks that can be accessed from inside classrooms; and a system for accessing master keys swiftly when minutes matter.

The day of the Robb Elementary School shooting, a teacher had propped open the west exterior door of the school’s west building—added to the school campus 23 years ago—to get food from a colleague, when she saw the shooter heading toward the building. She slammed the door shut, according to the teacher’s attorney, Don Flanary. The door should have kept the shooter out—or at least delayed his entry. It didn’t. Contrary to school policy, all three of the west building’s exterior doors were unlocked that day.

The west building’s exterior doors weren’t the only problem on May 24. Several of the classroom doors had problems latching, including room 111—the classroom through which the shooter “most likely” entered, per the Texas House of Representatives investigation report. KENS5 further reported that the door’s bolt didn’t fit its frame. In addition, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said that the strike plate that allows the door to latch was damaged.

Whatever the cause, securing the door required extra effort to ensure the latch engaged. Room 111 was not the only classroom whose door had problems. The fourth-grade teacher in room 109 testified in the Texas House report that she also “slammed [her] door shut because otherwise the lock would not [otherwise] latch.”

According to the Texas House report, Arnulfo Reyes, the teacher in Room 111, had alerted school administrators multiple times about the issue with the door prior to May 24. Yet a work order was never issued nor was there documentation of Reyes’ complaint in Robb Elementary maintenance records.

[…]

Part of the reason doors were propped open or left unlocked was because of a key shortage. The manufacturer had discontinued production of the door locks used at Robb; the school district had acquired a supply of key blanks, but those were gone by May 2022, Uvalde CISD Maintenance & Operations Director Rodney Harrison said in the Texas House report. Because of the key shortage, substitute teachers were told to use magnets and other methods to get around the locks in violation of school district policy.

Reading this story, and because I have a cybersecurity mindset, reminded me of two things. One is that there’s always a tradeoff between security and ease of use. Think about passwords. People use simple passwords and reuse the same password on multiple systems and fail to enable two-factor authentication because it’s easier that way, and because there’s a big price to pay for forgetting a password and getting locked out of an account or application that you really need. Finding shortcuts and conveniences and workarounds is human nature. You can spend a ton of money on fancy security systems – the story talks about how much money school districts have had to spend, usually via bond issuances that can be hard to convince voters to support, to meet new state requirements for physical security in schools. But if these systems don’t take the human factor into account, a lot of that money is wasted.

And two, no single security measure is ever sufficient on its own. This is why effective cybersecurity for an enterprise network is all about multiple layered, redundant, overlapping defense mechanisms. We expect there to be gaps and failures and weaknesses, which is why there are backups in place. You can “harden” schools all you want, but you can’t make them safe until you address the gun problem, and that’s something our Legislature just won’t do as things stand now.

It has become a mournful pattern. Following mass shootings, lawmakers in many states have taken stock of what happened and voted to approve gun control legislation to try to prevent additional bloodshed.

In Colorado, the Legislature passed universal background checks in 2013 after a shooter at an Aurora movie theater killed 12 people. After 58 people were shot dead during a 2017 concert in Las Vegas, the Nevada Legislature passed a red flag law that allows a judge to order that weapons be taken from people who are deemed a threat. And in Florida in 2018, then-Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill that raised the minimum age to buy a firearm to 21 after a teenager with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire at a Parkland high school, killing 17 people.

But not in Texas.

In the past six decades, the state has experienced at least 19 mass shootings that have killed a total of nearly 200 people and wounded more than 230 others. Yet state leaders have repeatedly batted away measures that would limit access to guns, opting instead to ease restrictions on publicly carrying them while making it harder for local governments to regulate them.

As the state Legislature convenes for the first time since the Uvalde school shooting last May, lawmakers have once again filed a slate of gun control bills. If history is an indicator, and top legislative leaders predict it will be, they are unlikely to pass.

An analysis by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune of hundreds of bills filed in the Texas Legislature over nearly the past six decades found that at least two dozen measures would have prevented people from legally obtaining the weapons, including assault rifles and large-capacity magazines, used in seven of the state’s mass shootings.

At least five bills would have required that people seeking to obtain a gun undergo a background check. Such a check would have kept the man involved in a 2019 shooting spree in Midland and Odessa from legally purchasing the weapon because he had been deemed to have a mental illness.

Seven bills would have banned the sale or possession of the semi-automatic rifle that a shooter used to kill dozens of people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019.

And at least two bills would have raised the legal age to own or purchase an assault weapon from 18 to 21 years old, which would have made it illegal for the Uvalde shooter to buy the semi-automatic assault rifles.

A state House committee that investigated the Uvalde massacre found that the shooter had tried to get at least two people to buy a gun for him before he turned 18 but was unsuccessful. Immediately after his birthday, he purchased two AR-15-style rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition, which he used to kill 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.

“If that law had been 21, I guarantee you he would have continued to be frustrated and not be able to obtain that weapon,” said state Rep. Joe Moody, a Democrat from El Paso who served as vice chair of the House committee.

It’s funny, in a bitterly ironic and painful way, that the first line of argument advanced by the legislative gun-huggers and the paid shills they listen to is that this one specific gun control law would not have stopped that one particular mass shooter, so therefore all gun control laws are useless. Yet there they are in the Lege going back to the same “harden the schools” well, time and time again. It takes a comprehensive approach, but the Republicans just won’t allow it.

Despite that, the work continues.

As a new legislative session kicks into gear, [Rep. Tracy] King is working on a bill that would increase the age limit to buy semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. The Uvalde gunman had tried to get at least two people to buy him firearms before he turned 18. Days after his 18th birthday, he purchased two AR-15-style rifles before invading the school and targeting students and teachers. In August, Uvalde residents and relatives of the shooting victims protested at the Capitol, calling on lawmakers to raise the age limit to buy the kind of firearms the Robb Elementary gunman used.

“In this particular case, that guy had tried to buy a gun,” said King, who previously wouldn’t support the legislation he plans to champion for his constituents. “It sure might have made a difference.”

Still, King’s legislation is a bold proposal in the state that leads the nation in gun sales and whose lawmakers have steadily loosened firearm restrictions amid eight mass shootings in 13 years. And it’s coming from a Democrat who previously voted to allow people to carry a handgun without training or a license. King hasn’t yet filed his bill, though other lawmakers have filed similar pieces of legislation this year.

Gov. Greg Abbott has dismissed the idea of raising the age limit as unconstitutional. In December, Texas dropped a fight to protect an existing state law that required people who carry handguns without licenses to be 21 or older after a federal district judge said it violates people’s Second Amendment rights. And Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan has said a proposal such as King’s lacks the votes to pass the lower chamber. But Phelan also said that “will not prevent a bill from being discussed and being debated.”

King knows he faces an uphill battle. But he’s also committed to trying, after spending nearly eight months helping folks — some of whom he knew before the tragedy — grapple with a staggering amount of loss.

“We have to go in it with our eyes open,” he said during a recent interview in his Texas Capitol office. “It’ll be a challenge. It’ll be a difficult conversation for a lot of people.”

King isn’t the only lawmaker who represents Uvalde and is pushing to limit access to semi-automatic rifles. State Sen. Roland Gutierre, a San Antonio Democrat whose district includes Uvalde, has already filed a bill in the Senate that would address the same issue.

Gutierrez has publicly criticized the law enforcement response, Texas’ loose gun laws and officials who have withheld information about the investigations into the shooting. Gutierrez has also filed legislation that would create robust mass shooting response training for all public safety entities and improve radio communication between certain agencies.

“I’m for Tracy’s bill, I’m for my bill, I’m for anybody’s bill if a Republican wants to come up and have a bill that raises the age limit on long guns right now to 21,” Gutierrez said. “We’re not taking anybody’s guns away. We’re regulating guns for what I would argue are minors, just like we do alcohol, just like we do cigarettes in Texas.”

I greatly respect what Sen. Gutierrez has been doing, and I’m glad to have Rep. King on board. I’ve also seen this movie before and I know how it ends. You know what my prescription for this problem is. If Gutierrez and King can change a few minds along the way, that will help. We have a long way to go.

Families of Santa Fe shooting victims reach settlement with online ammo sellers

Feb 13th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Very interesting.

Two companies that sold and shipped ammunition to the accused Santa Fe High School shooter have reached a settlement with the families of victims of the May 2018 massacre.

Online ammunition seller Luckygunner LLC and a related company, Red Stag Fulfillment LLC, in 2020 were sued by Santa Fe families, who accused the companies of enabling “illegal and negligent actions” by selling and shipping more than 100 rounds of handgun ammunition to then-17-year-old Dimitrious Pagourtzis. The lawsuit alleged that Pagourtzis used a prepaid gift card to buy the ammunition two months before the May 18, 2018, shooting.

Under federal law, it’s illegal for people younger than 18 years old to buy handgun ammunition. Licensed dealers are prohibited from selling ammunition to people younger than 21 years old.

Everytown Law, the gun violence prevention organization that represented one of the families in the lawsuit, announced Thursday that the case had been settled. The organization also said the companies agreed to “maintain an age verification system at the point of sale for all ammunition sales.” The agreement is the first of its kind, the organization said.

“Age-verification for ammunition sales is a no-brainer, especially when the sale is conducted online,” said Alla Lefkowitz, the senior director of affirmative litigation at Everytown Law. “It simply should not be possible for a minor to go online and have ammunition shipped to their house, no questions asked.”

Under the company’s new system, anyone whose age cannot be verified or who is verified to be younger than 21 years old is refused a sale, according to the news release.

[…]

In a phone interview, Lefkowitz said the company lost its immunity arguments “every single time.”

“Lucky Gunner had essentially set up a website in which they could not know the age of the customer,” she said. “I think that it’s really important for other online ammo sellers to implement these practices as well. I don’t think anyone wants to be in a position where they’re selling ammunition to someone that’s underage.”

She said there are other online sellers that don’t include age verification systems on their websites.

Galveston County court records show the companies and the victims reached a confidential settlement in January and asked the court to dismiss the case. The settlement came after Lucky Gunner lost an appeal in which the company claimed it was immune from being sued under federal law. That decision led to the settlement. Other terms of the agreement are confidential, according to the Everytown news release.

Here’s the full statement from Everytown. I had not followed this lawsuit – to be honest, I wasn’t aware of it – but there are a couple of lawsuits of a similar nature that resulted from the Uvalde mass shooting, which I am following. I’m just happy there’s even a small matter of accountability being laid on the gun industry. USA Today has more.

Still more Uvalde bills from Sen. Gutierrez

Feb 10th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

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At least one of these might have a chance to pass.

Sen. Roland Gutierrez

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez wants the Texas Department of Public Safety to create robust mass shooting response training for all public safety entities after the chaotic response to the Uvalde school massacre delayed medical treatment of victims.

“Everybody in Texas needs to examine the complete and utter failure that happened on this day,” Gutierrez said at a news conference in Austin, joined by families of victims from last year’s Uvalde shooting and the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting. “It must not ever happen again.”

The new slate of bills Gutierrez unveiled Tuesday came less than two months after an investigation by The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and The Washington Post found a faltered medical response undermined the chances that some Uvalde victims would survive the shooting.

[…]

On Tuesday, Gutierrez said the victims who had a pulse before later dying “might have lived” had the response been more in line with the average length of a mass shooting, which he said was about 12 to 14 minutes, compared to the 77 minutes children waited in Uvalde before the shooter was killed.

“We do not know how many of the other kids that didn’t have a pulse, at what time did they expire?” he said. “We do not know that.”

Gutierrez is a San Antonio Democrat whose Senate district includes Uvalde. His Senate Bill 738 calls for ensuring all public safety entities in certain counties have the radio infrastructure for communication between all public safety entities, including between different kinds of agencies.

Further, the bill would create a process to train public safety entities in responding to mass shootings. The training would be required to include protection of students at a school; emergency medical response training in minimizing casualties; tactics for denying an intruder entry into a school or classroom; and the chain of command during such an event.

Another legislative proposal outlined Tuesday would create a law enforcement unit tasked with having at least one officer present at each public school and higher education facility in the state. The unit, Texas School Patrol, would be expected to coordinate with local police officials about emergency responses to mass shooting events.

A third proposal, which Gutierrez called “a little bit more aspirational,” would replace a Confederate monument at the Capitol with a memorial to honor victims and survivors of mass gun violence.

“Each parent should be able to send their kids to school knowing that they’re going to be able to pick them up at the end of the day,” Gutierrez said. “We can afford to do this and we should do this and it will have the adequate training to make sure that they can handle this type of situation.”

Senate Bill 737, to create the new police unit, would require 10,000 additional officers in the state within the Texas Highway Patrol; it would cost about $750 million, Gutierrez said.

See here, here, and here for the background on Sen. Gutierrez’s efforts, and here for more on the failed medical response at Robb Elementary. I don’t want to predict success for any bill, especially a Democratic bill in Dan Patrick’s Senate, but SB738 strikes me as the kind of thing that probably won’t generate much ideological opposition. Spending money on enhanced security measures is one of the few acceptable-to-Republicans responses to mass shootings, so it has a chance. SB737 might have a chance as well, but it’s a lot more expensive and that might make people balk, even in a flush-budget biennium. I’m not saying these would be my top choices for bills to pass – I think SB738 has merit and hope it succeeds, while I’m far less enthusiastic about SB737 – but they are the sort of thing that could pass. This is the state government we have.

Uvalde school district will not finish its internal review of police response to mass shooting

Feb 8th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

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If nothing else, there are two clear arguments to be made in this debate.

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District announced it will not continue with an independent review of the district police response to the Robb Elementary School shooting.

UCISD announced in September it would work with JPPI Investigations to conduct an internal review of its police response to the deadly mass shooting that killed 19 students and 2 teachers last year.

The City of Uvalde previously engaged Jesse Prado of JPPI Investigations to investigate actions by the Uvalde Police Department.

A spokesperson with the district told the Uvalde Leader-News it halted the review and will work with findings from four different investigations.

This includes reports from a Texas House Committee, the Texas School Safety Center, the Texas School Police Chiefs’ Association, and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Note that UCISD has suspended its police force, and only one member of its force is still employed by UCISD, with that person still on leave. Given all this, pick your side:

1. It’s unlikely that UCISD’s own report would tell anyone anything that couldn’t be learned from the four other reviews. Producing that report costs money that UCISD could better spend elsewhere. UCISD doesn’t even have a police force at this point. The TSPCA report provided “a blueprint for building a suitable police force” if they do want one. Dropping the JPPI report was the sensible thing to do.

2. UCISD has a moral obligation to understand what went wrong with the police force they employed and why, whether or not they have their own police department going forward. The other reports will concentrate on their own actors and responsibilities and may not address concerns specific to UCISD. Those reports are being produced on their own timetable and may not be available to UCISD any time soon, or indeed at all. The TSPCA and Justice Department reports are not public, and if anyone deserves to know what happened, it’s the people of Uvalde. Not producing their own report is ducking their responsibilities and should be condemned.

Have at it.

Sen. Gutierrez files more Uvalde bills

Jan 29th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

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Wish I could say any of these had a chance, but the work he’s doing is still vital and necessary regardless.

Sen. Roland Gutierrez

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, said Tuesday that he is leading legislation to make it easier for families of the Robb Elementary School shooting victims to sue the state and police officers over the botched law enforcement response.

The San Antonio Democrat and other Democratic senators are introducing four new pieces of legislation that seek to increase gun safety and law enforcement accountability. The news came during a press conference, where they were flanked by several of the victims’ families.

“We’re not asking for the moon and the stars. We’re asking for commonsense solutions,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez filed Senate Bill 575 to end qualified immunity for police officers, a judicial doctrine that shields government officials from liability for constitutional violations. The doctrine has been spotlighted nationally in recent years because it is routinely used to protect law enforcement officers from being sued in cases of excessive force. He said ending qualified immunity will make it easier for the families of the Uvalde shooting victims to seek damages after the flawed law enforcement response to the Uvalde school shooting, in which hundreds of officers descended on the school but did not confront the gunman for over an hour.

This bill is accompanied by Senate Concurrent Resolution 12, which he co-authored with other Democratic senators, that “empowers” families of the Uvalde shooting victims to sue the state and its agencies.

“I support law enforcement 100%, but under no circumstances should they have [allowed] what happened on that day,” Gutierrez said. “They failed these children for 77 minutes for a lack of leadership — under no circumstances should they be allowed to walk away and not compensate people. There’s no amount of money that’s going to bring back their children. But there should be justice, so today’s about justice.”

Gutierrez said he plans to file about 20 bills in total in response to the Uvalde shooting.

See here and here for the background. Like I said, I expect basically nothing from any of these bills. The Republicans have made their position clear, and they see no reason to budge. Their rabid voters wouldn’t let them anyway. The next best thing, which we need to do anyway, is make the case to the public. We know plenty of people support a lot of these ideas. Getting them to vote for politicians who support them, that’s the problem. Sen. Gutierrez almost certainly won’t get any of his bill passed this session, but he is – and should be – working for the next session, or the one after that. It’s good to start now.

Project Unloaded

Jan 28th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

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I approve of this.

Jordan Phan spoke into the camera in a Tik Tok post with background music and several hash tags.

“I’ve spent the summer researching whether guns make us more or less safe, and the unfortunate truth is that guns make us all less safe,” the college sophomore said, listing several facts about women’s safety and domestic violence. “Guns are rarely used to protect, but often used to kill.”

The post was part of a wider campaign for a group called Project Unloaded. Instead of pushing for policy change or working with at-risk youth in neighborhoods, the organization aims to save lives and tackle gun violence by changing America’s gun culture — starting with young people on social media.

“I felt there was a missing piece in the larger movement to prevent gun violence, ” said Nina Vinik, the organization’s founder and executive director.

Most people think guns make them safer, she said, but research indicates the opposite is true.

“That myth is really at the core of America’s gun culture,” said Vinik, a Chicago lawyer. “We’re out to change the cultural narrative, to bust that myth and create a new narrative that guns make us less safe.”

The group launched a social media campaign called SNUG – Safer Not Using Guns – roughly a year ago in Houston and Milwaukee. It has since expanded into ten more cities, according to the organization, and the message has reached more than a million people on Tik Tok and Snapchat.

The campaign is meant for young people because their opinions and views are still changing. It includes partnerships with young Tik Tok influencers and Instagram posts loaded with statistics about the risks associated with firearms.

For example: Firearm-related injuries are the leading cause of death for American children and adolescents; suicide rates are four times higher for young people with guns at home; families in gun-owning homes are more than twice as likely to die by homicide.

[…]

Nearly a third of young people have had personal experience with gun violence, according to a report released in September by Project Unloaded. Black and Hispanic youth are more impacted than their peers.

The report found, too, that teens and young adults ranked gun violence as a bigger issue than abortion access or climate change. Half of the respondents in the survey said they think about school shootings every week.

The survey also discovered that young people changed their minds about gun ownership after reviewing facts about firearm risk.

“Gun violence is having a devastating impact on this generation of young people, and Gen Z is at the forefront of culture change,” Vinik said. “We’re talking directly to teens and really empowering this generation to be the ones to kind of propel that cultural change.”

While gun-related policies stall in the legislature, Hoyt said he hopes to help drive a cultural change by equipping people with information.

“We want to make sure we’re providing people all the facts we have, but we also don’t want to tell them exactly what to do,” he said. “Each person on their own has to decide.”

You can learn more about Project Unloaded here, and I presume on TikTok; as an Old Person, I don’t use that particular app, but I’m sure their target audience does. Founder Vinik talks a bit later about finding ways to make change that doesn’t rely on elected officials. Changing, or at least affecting, the culture is a great way to do that, but at some point the legislative and judicial processes need to be addressed as well. Putting out an effective message that can later help drive electoral behavior is a great way to start. I wish them all the best.

Pushing the panic button

Jan 23rd, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

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This feels like security theater to me, but it’s what passes for progress these days.

All school districts in Montgomery County will soon be using panic alert technology during emergencies, including an active shooter situation, a security measure Texas education officials have proposed to in the wake of the deadly Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde.

Conroe, Willis, Magnolia, New Caney, Montgomery and Splendora school districts will roll out the Rave Panic Button that will allow users to summon police, medical or fire personnel with the touch of one button on their cell phone.

The Montgomery County Emergency Communication District is partnering with the school districts to fund part of the $170,000 cost for three years.

Andrea Shepard, associate director at the emergency district, said the technology allows a faculty or staff member to push a button for help in an emergency and immediately be connected with 911 dispatchers. The app alerts other faculty and staff on the campus of the threat as well.

“The safety and wellbeing of our students and staff is and will always be our No. 1 priority,” Shepard said. “Our school community should be focused on learning, not worrying about their safety.

[…]

The partnership comes after the Texas Education Agency released more details in November regarding panic button technology to beef up school safety after the shooting deaths of 19 children and two adults in May at Robb Elementary.

Currently, districts in 46 states are using the panic button technology, including several in Texas.

I can understand why schools and school districts find this kind of solution appealing. It feels like you’re doing something, which in an environment where not much is in your control has to provide some comfort. It’s not clear to me what the practical advantage of using this app is over just calling 911, especially if you still have to describe the reason for pushing the button. I’m sure some academic is currently collecting data to try to find the effect of one of these apps – there are several options, apparently, with Montgomery schools choosing a product called Rave – so we’ll eventually see a study or two to tell us. The bigger issue – well, one of them, since the root cause problem is only mentioned at the end of this story – is what happens once the button is pushed.

Uvalde had a similar panic system in place when the gunfire erupted in May. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D-San Antonio) told KHOU that panic buttons work to a degree but won’t solve the gun violence in schools.

“It did work to a certain degree. It warned people and law enforcement there was an intruder,” said Gutierrez, whose districts represents the Uvalde area.

He said the technologies are just a band-aid to the real problem.

“There are remedies on both sides of the aisle but they are not really addressing the real core of the problem, which is we are putting assault rifles in the hands of 18-year-olds,” said Gutierrez.

Calling law enforcement in a more efficient manner is only an advantage if law enforcement’s response is up to the challenge. The example from Uvalde is not promising. Maybe Montgomery County is up to the task. I’m sure Uvalde would have said they were up to it as well, and we haven’t even mentioned DPS and their manifest failures. I mean, I dunno, maybe putting in some effort on the prevention part of the equation might be worthwhile? Just a thought.

Uvalde parents will take their fight to the Lege

Jan 17th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

They’re not going to get what they want and they know it, but they’re still going to fight. I have so much respect for them.

More than seven months after a teenage gunman killed 21 people at Robb Elementary School, the speaker of the Texas House was in Uvalde for a private meeting with relatives of the victims.

Dade Phelan had never met them. After the introductions in a room at the local community college, a family member started with the group’s main question: Will the Legislature raise the minimum age to purchase an assault-style weapon from 18 to 21?

Phelan was up front with them: No.

The House doesn’t have the votes, he said. And no, he doesn’t personally support it, either.

The tense discussion on Jan. 4 lasted just shy of an hour and a half, and Phelan spent most of it discussing potential mental health legislation, participants said. The families left discouraged, unsure of their next steps in a state where Republicans, most of whom oppose any firearm restrictions, control the Legislature.

It marked an awkward transition for the Uvalde activists, who have spent months advocating for gun control laws. They felt welcomed and heard on lobbying trips to Washington, D.C., and several of them campaigned heartily for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, who lost his challenge to Gov. Greg Abbott on Nov. 8.

Phelan was one of the few lawmakers to address the Uvalde shooting when the legislative session began Tuesday, promising “sensible, meaningful change.” Republican leaders have focused on bolstering mental health resources and improving the physical defenses of schools — both of which have bipartisan support as the session starts.

But the prospects for any gun regulations in Texas are dim, leaving the Uvalde families convinced that the next mass shooting is only a question of time.

“I just feel like we’re in new territory,” said Kim Rubio, who lost her 10-year-old daughter, Lexi, at Robb Elementary School. “When this happened, there was a lot of talk at the federal level about making changes, so we really hit the ground running toward that. Now, we’re back at square one.”

It’s kind of painful, but you can read the rest. The best the Uvalde parents can hope for is a state ban on straw-person sales, which is already a federal crime. Beyond that, it’s the usual bunkum about guns not being the problem and there being nothing we could do to stop the next school shooter even if guns were the problem, some promises to increase security at schools, and some vague and meaningless words about mental health. The school security measures have some value, and I’d be all right with them for the most part if they were part of a larger deal that included real gun reform, but they’re not. As these parents know all too well, it’s just a matter of time before some other group of parents are in the same unfathomable position they’re in now. They’re trying to do something about that, but they really can’t, not right now. This isn’t a lobbying or legislating matter, it’s a political and electoral one. That’s a bigger and more long-term problem. I wish them all the best anyway.

More guns found at domestic violence incidents

Dec 30th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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Not great.

The 2021 State of the State report from the Texas Council on Family Violence (TCFV) outlines key domestic violence statistics from the past two years. The report shows the number of domestic violence calls law enforcement responded to that involved a gun increased by 92.4%.

Texas law prohibits someone subject to a protective order for abuse from possessing a firearm except for law enforcement officers. But Breall Baccus from TCFV said that people with protective orders don’t always have their firearms taken away.

“A lot of counties don’t have a process in place to remove those firearms,” Baccus said.

Kathryn Jacob is the president and CEO at SafeHaven, the state-designated family violence center in Tarrant County. She said guns play a major role in domestic violence homicides.

“As far as intimate partners are concerned, year after year, the vast majority die by guns,” Jacob said.

The presence of a firearm increases a woman’s risk of being killed as much as 500%, according to the report. It also shows that women are almost four times more likely to be killed when attempting to leave their abuser than at any other point in the relationship.

The report in question is here; it’s a nine-page PDF with charts and easy to read so take a minute and give it a look. You know who else would very much like for there to be fewer guns present at domestic violence incidents? Every member of your local law enforcement office. The Lege is not inclined to do anything about that, and even they felt some pressure to do so they would point to the recent deranged court ruling from Texas that claims it would be unconstitutional. So here we are, and you can expect that number to continue to rise.

Will we finally close the “dead suspect” loophole?

Dec 28th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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The short answer is no we won’t, but it will be worth the effort anyway.

Rep. Joe Moody

In November, state Representative Joe Moody, an El Paso Democrat who served on a committee that investigated the Uvalde killings, filed House Bill 30, a multifaceted measure that would close what’s called the “dead suspect loophole.” Under current law, Texas cops and prosecutors may withhold from the public many records stemming from investigations that did not result in a conviction. This statute arguably protects the reputations of innocent Texans, but it also casts a veil of secrecy over cases where there’s no conviction because the suspect is deceased—including when cops kill someone during an arrest, or a person dies in jail, or a school shooter’s rampage ends, as happened at Robb Elementary, with his own demise. Moody’s bill would specifically open up many cases where the lack of a conviction resulted from a suspect’s death.

Since May, state police have withheld records such as video and audio recordings from the Uvalde scene on the premise that the local district attorney is still investigating—a standard reason that agencies hold back much detailed information. Under the dead suspect loophole, however, those records can plausibly be kept secret forever. HB 30 would head this off.

“I certainly respect the investigatory process, but at some point you turn the corner and the public deserves to scrutinize the records, and that is at the heart of the Public Information Act,” Moody told the Observer. “The government doesn’t get to decide what is good for us to know and what is bad for us to know.”

In June, GOP Speaker of the House Dade Phelan tweeted support for closing the dead suspect loophole in Uvalde’s wake, and a spokesperson confirmed in early December that the speaker continues to support such a policy though he is “not yet familiar with the specifics of legislation that has been filed.”

In its present form, HB 30 would also expand public access to information about police misconduct in general and to videos of jail deaths or shootings by police, along with creating a public database of reports related to such shootings, among other provisions.

Next year’s legislative session, to begin in January, will mark the fourth time that Moody has tried to close the dead suspect loophole. In past sessions, discussion of his bills centered on prominent cases in which Texans were shot on their porches, tased in the back of squad cars, or left to perish in jails. Moody nearly succeeded in closing the loophole in 2019—with help from a contingent of small-government Republicans open to criminal justice reform—but he was derailed by a last-minute, scorched-earth campaign from the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas (CLEAT), the state’s largest police union, in a fight that left the El Paso lawmaker and the lobbying powerhouse as bitter adversaries.

Transparency advocates hope that Uvalde will make the difference this time around, but they won’t be getting any help from CLEAT. “Just like it has been in the past, this is a George Soros-funded fishing expedition that seeks to tear down our profession by false innuendo,” said CLEAT spokesperson Jennifer Szimanski, homing in on parts of the bill dealing with police personnel files. “We’ll definitely be fighting this piece of legislation.”

Szimanski—who also said of the bill: “This is ‘defund the police’”—added that there was likely no path for her group and Moody to discuss any compromise because “the author of this bill has not contacted us since 2019.”

Moody countered that his bill is “properly tailored” to only target information in police personnel files necessary to shed light on misconduct and specific incidents including ones involving dead suspects. “This is a serious policy. It’s not political grandstanding, but the people of that organization are completely disingenuous,” he said of CLEAT, adding that he has not received backing from George Soros, the Hungarian-American billionaire—often used as a bogeyman by the political right—who’s funded criminal justice reform efforts in recent years.

In addition to overcoming CLEAT, Moody would also need acquiescence from archconservative Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who controls the state Senate, and freshly reelected Governor Greg Abbott, who wields the veto pen and may harbor presidential ambitions. Neither responded to requests for comment for this article.

See here and here for some background. As I’ve said before on things like marijuana reform and expanded gambling, nothing will happen unless Dan Patrick changes his mind. We had our chance to do something about that, but we failed. Rep. Moody may be able to get a bill through the House again, but it will never make it through the Senate. It’s still worth the effort because of the stakes involved, but this is a long-term project. There’s no other way.

The rest of the story is about the history of this loophole, which has only existed since the late 90s – things were actually much better before then. Worth your time to read, I had no idea about it. For what it’s worth, Rep. Moody will surely have at least one cranky and pissed off ally in the Senate, and maybe that will have some effect.

Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, lambasted the emergency response to the Robb Elementary School shooting as “the worst response to a mass shooting in our nation’s history” during a congressional hearing Thursday.

“It was system failure, it was cowardice,” Gutierrez said. He joined family members and supporters of the victims in calling for stronger federal action to prevent gun violence.

Gutierrez, a Democrat, made the remarks during a hearing of the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security that was focused on bipartisan legislative solutions to gun violence. But bipartisanship was hardly present as Democrats continued to point out what they called common-sense gun policy and Republicans accused them of trying to take away constitutional gun rights.

[…]

Congress passed a bipartisan law spearheaded by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in the aftermath of the Uvalde shooting — the first major gun safety law in decades. The law increased funding for mental health resources, barred convicted violent domestic partners from buying guns, created grants for states implementing red flag laws and set money for state crisis intervention programs.

But Gutierrez criticized the bipartisan gun law as lacking basic provisions that would have stopped the massacre. He was angered that the Senate stripped a provision raising the minimum age to buy assault weapons to 21.

“The fact is in Texas you got to be 21 to buy a handgun, 21 to buy a beer, 21 to buy a pack of cigarettes, but you can be 18 and buy an AR-15, and that’s what happened here because this governor allowed it,” Gutierrez told reporters during a recess in the hearing. “It’s time for change, not just in Texas but throughout this country.”

As we know, Sen. Gutierrez plans to be a pain in the Senate’s ass about Uvalde and gun control. I’m sure he’d be persuaded to add this item to his list.

Senate committee makes small Uvalde recommendations

Dec 23rd, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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Par for the course.

A special Texas Senate committee that convened in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting made a series of policy recommendations Wednesday regarding school and gun safety, mental health, social media and police training.

In an 88-page report, the Special Committee to Protect All Texans acknowledged “more must be done to ensure the safety of Texas school children” in the wake of the May massacre, which killed 19 students and two teachers. The report was based in part on two days of testimony from police, mental health and education professionals, and gun safety advocates in June.

The committee made a single recommendation related to guns: Make purchasing a gun for someone who is barred from owning one a state-level felony. Straw purchases of firearms — when a person stands in to buy a gun for someone who is prohibited from having one — are illegal under federal law, though the committee expressed concern that U.S. attorneys too seldom prosecute offenders.

Gov. Greg Abbott in 2019 recommended banning straw purchases under state law in a report his office produced after the El Paso Walmart mass shooting. But the Legislature failed to pass it.

Such a law would not have prevented the Uvalde shooter from purchasing guns. He legally purchased two semiautomatic rifles in the days before the shooting.

On school safety, the committee proposed the creation of review teams to conduct on-site vulnerability assessments of school campuses and share the results with school leaders. It also suggested additional funding for grants to improve security at individual campuses based on needs.

It called for adding training centers for the school marshal program, through which teachers and staff can become certified to carry guns on campus. Since the program debuted in 2013, just 84 of the state’s more than 1,200 districts have joined.

On mental health care, the committee recommended expanding access to the state’s telemedicine system for mental health to all school districts within a “reasonable time frame.” It also implored lawmakers to look for ways to increase the number of mental health professionals to support this expansion, such as allowing practitioners to volunteer; offering loan repayment benefits for professionals, especially in rural areas; offering paid fellowship and internships; and streamlining licensure requirements.

There are more recommendations, but none that will make you say “yeah, that will definitely help”. Certainly, there’s nothing to try to keep high-risk people from getting guns, and nothing to prevent people under the age of 21 from buying them. Most of these recommendations are reactive in nature; one of the few that are proactive is the vulnerability assessment plan, which will expose problems that may or may not be able to be remediated. Why would we expect anything different? Oh, and as a reminder, the single biggest and most effective thing the state of Texas could do to improve access mental health care is to expand Medicaid. Yeah, yeah, I know. Reform Austin has more.

Texas drops appeal of ruling that forbade banning the sale of handguns to people under 21

Dec 22nd, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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Least surprising headline of the week. And month, and year, and pretty much any other arbitrary timeline you choose.

Texas will no longer fight to ban 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying handguns in public. A judge ruled earlier this year that a state law banning the practice was unconstitutional, and Texas initially filed a notice that it would appeal. But Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw withdrew the appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman’s ruling was the first major decision about Texas gun laws since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the Second Amendment protected individuals who carry weapons for self-defense.

In September, the state filed a notice of appeal, which angered gun rights activists.

“Once again, government officials in the state of Texas are proven to be anti-gun stooges,” Dudley Brown, the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, said in a news release at the time.

Neither the notice of appeal nor the withdrawal listed legal arguments or reasons for doing so; DPS and the Texas attorney general’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.

See here and here for the background. I’m quite certain that the legal reasoning behind this is “we never wanted to appeal this in the first place but there was an election coming up and we wanted to tread carefully, and now that everyone has been safely re-elected we can drop the pretense”. This was predictable enough to be visible from orbit. My question for the lawyers is, could some other group pick up the appeal in place of the state, the way the then-Republican Congress took up the defense of DOMA after the Obama administration dropped out? I don’t know what the conditions are for that.

The medical response also failed at Uvalde

Dec 21st, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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This is a very hard story to read, with graphic descriptions of injuries suffered by the shooting victims at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Click over very carefully, but whether you read or not know that the failures at the site of this shooting were not limited to law enforcement’s response.

The chaotic scene exemplified the flawed medical response — captured in video footage, investigative documents, interviews and radio traffic — that experts said undermined the chances of survival for some victims of the May 24 massacre. Two teachers and 19 students died.

Law enforcement’s well-documented failure to confront the shooter who terrorized the school for 77 minutes was the most serious problem in getting victims timely care, experts said. But previously unreleased records obtained by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and The Washington Post for the first time show that communication lapses and muddled lines of authority among medical responders further hampered treatment.

Three victims who emerged from the school with a pulse later died. In the case of two of those victims, critical resources were not available when medics expected they would be, delaying hospital treatment for [teacher Eva] Mireles, 44, and student Xavier Lopez, 10, records show.

Another student, Jacklyn “Jackie” Cazares, 9, likely survived for more than an hour after being shot and was promptly placed in an ambulance after medics finally gained access to her classroom. She died in transport.

The disjointed medical response frustrated medics while delaying efforts to get ambulances, air transport and other emergency services to victims. Medical helicopters with critical supplies of blood tried to land at the school, but an unidentified fire department official told them to wait at an airport 3 miles away. Dozens of parked police vehicles blocked the paths of ambulances trying to reach victims.

Multiple cameras worn by officers and one on the dashboard of a police car showed just two ambulances positioned outside the school when the shooter was killed. That was not nearly enough for the 10 or more gunshot victims then still alive, though additional ambulances began arriving 10 minutes later. Six students, including one who was seriously wounded, were taken to a hospital in a school bus with no trained medics on board, according to Texas EMS records.

[…]

Although helicopters were available, none were used to carry victims directly from the school. At least four patients who survived were flown by helicopter to a more fully equipped trauma center in San Antonio after first being driven by ambulance to a nearby hospital or airport.

In public statements made since May, law enforcement officials have defended their officers’ actions as reasonable under difficult circumstances. Federal, state and local agencies that responded to the shooting have not directly addressed the medical response, nor did they answer detailed questions from the news organizations that worked jointly on this investigation.

Eric Epley, executive director of the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council, a nonprofit that helps coordinate trauma care in Southwest Texas during mass-casualty events, said medics encountered challenges, including a faulty radio system.

“These scenes are inherently confusing, challenging, and chaotic,” Epley said in an email. He later added, “We remain steadfast that the decisions by the on-scene medical leadership were sound and appropriate.”

The Texas Rangers, an arm of the state Department of Public Safety, are investigating what went wrong in Uvalde, including whether any victims might have survived if they had received prompt medical care. The local district attorney has said she will use that investigation to determine whether to charge anyone with a crime, including law enforcement officers.

[…]

It’s difficult to know whether Mireles or anyone else who died that day might have survived their wounds, in part because local officials have refused to release autopsy reports. But footage shows that Mireles was conscious and responsive when she was pulled from the classroom, an indicator that she probably had survivable wounds, according to medical experts.

“Had medics gotten to her quickly, there’s a good chance she would’ve survived,” said Babak Sarani, director of critical care at George Washington University Hospital.

The flawed coordination among police and medical crews echoes missteps during other mass shootings, despite the development of recommended practices after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. In several of those cases, the communication problems resulted in delays in getting medical care for victims.

Medics on helicopters and in ambulances who responded to the Uvalde shooting told investigators they were confused about who was in charge, where they should be stationed and how many victims to expect. Some of them pleaded to be allowed closer to the scene. In the absence of clear guidance, experts said medics did the best they could while trying to save lives.

“They were told, essentially, to go to the airport and wait,” according to an interview the Texas Rangers conducted with Julie Lewis, the regional manager for AirLIFE, an air medical transport service that sent three helicopters from the greater San Antonio area. “They couldn’t figure out who was in command.”

There’s a lot more. The bottom line is, as we have learned before, that there was no clear command structure, so those who were trying to help didn’t know who to talk or listen to and didn’t know what they needed to know to proceed. It remains the case that a lot of official information about what happened is still closely guarded and not available to reporters or the public. More infuriating is that we have learned what the best practices are to respond to one of these tragedies, as there have been so many to learn from, and yet the same type of failures keep happening. Given the regularity with which they occur in Texas and the certainty that the next one is a matter of when and not if, that failure is owned not just by local officials but also by our state “leaders”. We know that failure will continue, because they have no interest in doing anything about it. Go read the rest of the story if you can stand it.

More on the limits of social media monitoring for school violence prevention

Dec 19th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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Some good stuff from the DMN.

When Social Sentinel representatives pitched their service to Florida’s Gulf Coast State College in 2018, they billed it as an innovative way to find threats of suicides and shootings posted online. But for the next two years, the service found nothing dangerous.

One tweet notified the school about a nearby fishing tournament: “Check out the picture of some of the prizes you can win – like the spear fishing gun.”

Another quoted the lyrics from a hit pop song from 2010: “Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? I could really use a wish right now.”

As police and administrators fielded a flood of alerts about posts that seemed to pose no threat, the company told the school in emails that it had eliminated more than half of all irrelevant alerts. Months later, they said the number had decreased by 80%. By January 2019, the company told schools its service flagged 90% fewer irrelevant posts.

But at Gulf Coast, the problem continued.

One alert from March 2019 read, “Hamburger Helper only works if the hamburger is ready to accept that it needs help.”

“Nothing ever came up there that was actionable on our end,” David Thomasee, the executive director of operations at Gulf Coast, said in an interview earlier this year. The college stopped using the service in April 2021.

Gulf Coast was not the only college inundated with irrelevant alerts. Officials from 12 other colleges raised concerns about the performance of Social Sentinel in interviews and emails obtained by The Dallas Morning News and the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Only two of the 13, North Central Texas College and the University of W Connecticut, still use the service.

As schools and universities confront a worsening mental health crisis and an epidemic of mass shootings, Social Sentinel offers an attractive and low-cost way to keep students safe. But experts say the service also raises questions about whether the potential benefits are worth the tradeoffs on privacy.

Records show Social Sentinel has been used by at least 38 colleges in the past seven years, including four in North Texas. The total number is likely far higher — The company’s co-founder wrote in an email that hundreds of colleges in 36 states used Social Sentinel.

The News also analyzed more than 4,200 posts flagged by the service to four colleges from November 2015 to March 2019. None seem to contain any imminent, serious threat of violence or self-harm, according to a News
analysis, which included all of the posts obtained through public records requests.

Some schools contacted by The News said the service alerted them to students struggling with mental health issues. Those potential success stories were outweighed by complaints that the service flagged too many irrelevant tweets, interviews and emails between officials show. None of the schools could point to a student whose life was saved because of the service.

[…]

For one former Social Sentinel employee, it only took three days before they had serious doubts about the effectiveness of the service.

The worker estimated that 99.9% of the flagged posts sent to clients were not threatening. The service often crashed because it flagged too many posts. At least 40% of clients dropped the service every year, the employee said.

Over the course of several months, the employee repeatedly raised concerns with supervisors and fellow employees about flaws in the system, but those complaints were often ignored, the worker said.

The employee, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said problems with the service were an open secret at the company, and described it as “snake oil” and “smoke and mirrors.”

The News also contacted more than two dozen other former company employees, who either did not respond or said they had signed nondisclosure agreements preventing them from speaking publicly about their time at the company.

At the University of Texas at Dallas, which started using the service in 2018, campus police officers in charge of the service also grew increasingly skeptical of its performance, emails obtained through a records request show.

“Does the company have any data (not anecdotal) to show its success rate in mitigating harm or disaster through its alert system?” UT Dallas Police Lieutenant Adam Perry asked his chief in an email obtained by The News. The chief forwarded the email to a company employee who didn’t answer the question.

Perry said that while the school used the service, the technology never alerted police to legitimate threats of suicide or shootings.

“I think in concept, it’s not a bad program,” Perry said. “I just think they need to work on distinguishing what a real threat is.” UT Dallas ended its use of the service last year.

Ed Reynolds, police chief at the University of North Texas, defended the system, but also estimated that “99.9 percent (of the alerts) were messages we didn’t need to do anything with.” After using the service for about three years, UNT ended its contract with the company in November 2018.

As noted before, the Uvalde school district was among the ISDs in Texas that have used Social Sentinel. Putting my cybersecurity hat on for a minute, there are similar services in that space that do provide good value, but they have been around longer, there’s far more data on cyber threats, and it’s much easier to configure alerts for these services to very specific things, which greatly reduces the noise factor. I do think a service like this could be useful, but what we have now is not mature enough. More data and more analysis to help eliminate likely false positives before they show up in a customer’s alert feed are needed. Even with that, it’s still likely to be noisy and to require fulltime human analysis to get value out of it. For now, the best use of this is probably for academics. After they’ve had some time with it, then school districts and colleges might make use of it.

Uvalde class action lawsuit over mass shooting officially filed

Dec 5th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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We’ve been waiting for this.

Survivors of the fatal mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, have filed a $27 billion class action lawsuit against multiple law enforcement agencies in Texas, according to court documents.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Austin, names the city, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, the school district’s police department, the Uvalde Police Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety and a number of persons who are members or former members of the agencies listed as defendants.

The plaintiffs include parents and teachers and school staff members who were at the school May 24 when 19 students and two teachers were gunned down in adjoining classrooms just a few days before school was to let out for the summer. At least 17 others were wounded.

A total of 376 law enforcement officers from multiple agencies responded to the massacre, the second deadliest shooting on a K-12 school in the United States.

Officers waited 77 minutes after the shooter entered two adjoining classrooms before storming in and killing the gunman, an 18-year-old Uvalde resident.

The lawsuit alleges the victims and survivors “sustained emotional and psychological damages as a result of Defendants’ conduct and omissions” as a result of the shooting.

According to the lawsuit, despite active shooter training, law enforcement “fundamentally strayed from conducting themselves in conformity with what they knew to be the well-established protocols and standards for responding to an active shooter.”

The lawsuit went on to reference the dysfunction and extended time period law enforcement took to respond to the shooting.

“Instead of swiftly implementing an organized and concerted response to an active school shooter who had breached the otherwise ‘secured’ school buildings at Robb Elementary school, the conduct of the three hundred and seventy-six (376) law enforcement officials who were on hand for the exhaustively torturous seventy-seven minutes of law enforcement indecision, dysfunction, and harm, fell exceedingly short of their duty bound standards,” the suit claims.

[…]

The civil complaint is one of several around the massacre that seeks damages from a number of parties. One federal lawsuit filed earlier this week alleges nearly two dozen people and entities, including the gun manufacturer and store that provided the rifle used in the attack, were negligent and failed to protect a student who was killed. Other families filed a similar lawsuit in September.

See here and here for the background on this class action lawsuit, which we first heard about in August. As the story notes, there are separate lawsuits filed in September and earlier this week by different plaintiffs, mostly against the same defendants. As I’ve said before, I don’t know what the odds of success are – I’m more pessimistic than optimistic, but will be delighted to be proven wrong. I’ll be rooting for them regardless. NPR, Reuters, and KENS5 have more.

Another lawsuit filed by Uvalde parents

Nov 30th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Another one to watch.

The mother of a 10-year-old killed in the Uvalde school shooting has filed a federal lawsuit against the gun-maker and seller, the city of Uvalde, its school district and several law enforcement officers.

Sandra Torres’ daughter Eliahna was one of 19 students and 2 teachers killed by an 18-year-old gunman at Robb Elementary in May.

“I miss her every moment of every day,” Torres said in a joint press release with her lawyers from Everytown for Gun Safety’s legal team and Texas-based LM Law Group. “I’ve brought this lawsuit to seek accountability. No parent should ever go through what I have.”

The new lawsuit alleges that Daniel Defense — the manufacturer of the shooter’s weapon — violated the Federal Trade Commission Act, arguing that the Georgia-based company’s marketing on social media and video games “prime young buyers to purchase AR-15-style rifles as soon as they are legally able.” Earlier this year, gun-maker Remington settled a lawsuit for $73 million with the Sandy Hook shooting victims’ families who had also targeted the company’s marketing.

Torres’ lawsuit also accused Oasis Outback of “reckless dereliction” of selling weapons to the 18-year-old shooter. Some store patrons later told the FBI that he had “appeared odd and looked like one of those school shooters.”

The suit also accuses various law enforcement officers of failing “to follow active shooter protocols.” It argues that their decision to treat the active shooter as a “barricaded subject” inside the two classrooms had violated the victims’ constitutional rights.

[…]

Many of these defendants have also been facing a federal lawsuit filed by the families of three student survivors in September, which alleges that the parties’ actions and negligence contributed to the shooting. This followed another claim filed in August seeking $27 billion from the school district and other government agencies to compensate the victims.

Numerous Uvalde officials and officers have also resigned or been fired over the past few months, and the school district also suspended its entire police department in October. Some are named in Torres’ lawsuit, including former Uvalde school district police Chief Pete Arredondo, Uvalde Police Department’s acting chief Lt. Mariano Pargas, as well as Texas Department of Public Safety’s troopers Juan Maldonado andCrimson Elizondo.

See here and here for more on the earlier lawsuits; the former is a class action suit that I’m still not sure has actually been filed yet. The Chron adds some details.

The 77-page lawsuit accuses many of the defendants of contributing to wrongful death, negligence and violating the constitutional rights of Eliahna and other victims at Robb Elementary.

“Sometimes the only way you get justice is by filing a lawsuit,” said Blas Delgado of San Antonio, the lead lawyer for the Torres family. “There have been a lot of questions throughout the investigation, and we hope this also helps answer some of them.”

The suit alleges that Daniel Defense “markets its products to adolescent and young men using a range of channels, including social media content, product placements, and print advertising.

“For example, Daniel Defense promotes its products heavily on Instagram, a platform with a young user base,” the lawsuit states.

“Daniel Defense also places its products in video games, and then heavily promotes the video game tie-ins in the company’s social media accounts,” the suit said.

The gun manufacturer did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Salvador Ramos of Uvalde bought a DDM4 V7 rifle on Daniel Defense’s website for $2,054.28 on May 16, his 18th birthday.

On another website, he paid $1,761.50 for 1,740 rounds of ammunition for the rifle.

The next day, Ramos went to Oasis Outback and bought a Smith & Wesson M&P15 assault rifle for $1,081.42, the lawsuit said.

The day after that, the teenager went back to Oasis Outback to buy an additional 375 rounds of AR-15 ammunition.

Ramos returned to Oasis Outback again two days later, on May 20, to pick up his Daniel Defense rifle and bought accessories for the weapon.

“Oasis Outback had a duty not to sell weapons to the just-turned 18-year-old shooter, who it knew or reasonably should have known was likely to harm himself or others,” the suit said.

“The shooter was described by patrons of the store as having a nervous disposition and behaving suspiciously.”

“The shooter had purchased two extraordinarily lethal assault weapons and enough ammunition to fight off a small army, as well as a holographic sight and Hellfire Gen 2 trigger system, spending thousands of dollars within days of his 18th birthday,” it stated.

We’ve talked about Daniel Defense before. I’d love to see them at least feel compelled to settle, but suffice it to say I consider that an underdog. With SCOTUS as it is I fear they’re untouchable. But I hope to be proved wrong. Reform Houston and the Current have more.

DPS asks to be rewarded for its abject failure at Uvalde

Nov 28th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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I like to think that I don’t get easily shocked, but this did it to me.

The Texas Department of Public Safety wants $1.2 billion to turn its training center north of Austin into a full-time statewide law enforcement academy — starting with a state-of-the-art active-shooter facility that would need a nearly half-billion-dollar investment from Texas taxpayers next year.

“You play like you practice,” DPS Director Steve McCraw told budget officials last month. “You need to practice in a real environment.”

If approved, the requested $466.6 million “down payment,” as McCraw called it, in the state’s 2024-25 budget — which won’t be finalized until the middle of next year — would be the start of a six-year proposal to turn the nearly 200-acre Williamson County DPS Tactical Training Center complex in Florence into a Texas law enforcement academy for use by agencies across the state, he said.

The $1.2 billion project figure does not appear in the agency’s legislative appropriations request, which comes at a time when agencies are making their bids for a share of a historic state cash surplus in the next biennium — and against the backdrop of an emotional debate over what the state needs to do to prevent more mass killings.

A “state-of-the-art” active-shooter facility would be built with the first round of funding next year and could be used “right off the bat,” independent of the rest of the proposed upgrades, to immediately enhance active-shooter response by Texas law enforcement, McCraw said in a brief presentation before the Texas Legislative Budget Board on Oct. 4.

If fully funded over the next three budget cycles, the training academy would cost $1.2 billion and eventually include dormitories, a cafeteria and other elements, McCraw said.

“It’s a cost we recognize as a cost that can’t be borne in any one session. It takes time to build it,” McCraw said of the proposed academy.

He did not specify whether the center would charge fees for other law enforcement agencies to use the facility, if it would draw down any federal funding or what it would cost to run the center beyond the six-year construction budget.

DPS officials did not respond to repeated requests for a copy of the proposed plans for the active-shooter facility or the larger multiyear proposal for the academy, information about whether additional land purchases would be needed or the breakdown of the cost estimate for the upgrades.

The proposal comes as the agency faces heavy criticism over its response to the deadly elementary school shooting in Uvalde in May, when officers from several agencies including the DPS took 77 minutes to breach the classroom where a gunman shot to death 19 students and two teachers.

The proposed active-shooter facility was part of a presentation made by McCraw to captains at the Texas Highway Patrol, an arm of the DPS, according to meeting minutes obtained by The Texas Tribune. The minutes said the facility would include the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training program — an active-shooter response training system developed 20 years ago at Texas State University in San Marcos that has been the national standard for active-shooter training for a decade.

[…]

Pete Blair, executive director of the ALERRT center at Texas State, said his San Marcos facility is used for several types of first-responder training as well as active-shooter training on site.

Blair hasn’t seen the DPS plans for the proposed site but said a facility that would be considered state of the art might include reconfigurable walls, cameras and similar technological upgrades.

That’s the sort of technology that would be found at facilities like the federal Military Operations in Urban Terrain facility in Quantico, Virginia, which has 17 structures including a school scenario. Another of the nation’s top-tier facilities is at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers Glynco campus, a 1,600-acre facility near Brunswick, Georgia.

Most of the quarter-million first responders the Texas ALERRT center has worked with in the past two decades were trained somewhere besides the Texas State center in San Marcos, Blair said.

“I will say there is a need for training facilities across the state,” Blair said. “We’ve always had more demand than we have money to provide training. So every cycle, it’s been a situation of us having to put departments on the waitlist and say, ‘We’re coming to you, but it’s going to be a while.’”

Here’s my proposal for DPS active shooter training: A single PowerPoint slide that says “Don’t stand around with your thumb up your ass while kids are being murdered.” I can deliver that for a lot less than $1.2 billion, and the results can’t possibly be any worse than what we already had. The idea that we could turn mass shooter situations into a growth industry is just…I can’t. I’m going to go eat some pie. Reform Austin.

Sen. Gutierrez begins his mission to be a pest about Uvalde

Nov 16th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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One of the things I’ll be watching this session.

Sen. Roland Gutierrez

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio has pre-filed three bills ahead of Texas’ next legislative session that would reform state gun laws and set up a state fund to compensate victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde.

The two gun-related bills would establish high risk protective orders to keep firearms away from potentially dangerous people and raise the age limit to buy any firearm from 18 to 21.

The other proposal would set up a $300 million fund for Uvalde victims and their families and waive legal immunity for state and local law enforcement who responded to the Robb Elementary shooting on May 24.

“We are doing what should have been done after Sutherland Springs, Santa Fe, El Paso, and Midland-Odessa,” the Democrat said in an emailed statement. “Making sure that young killers cannot get their hands on the weaponry that is used in most of these shootings.”

[…]

The next session of the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature session starts in January. So far, Texas GOP leaders have shown no willingness to impose new limits on gun ownership despite multiple high-profile mass killings across the state.

“It’s time for the killing in Texas to stop,” Gutierrez said. “We cannot continue to live in fear of going to school, going to church, shopping for groceries, and just living our lives.”

See here for the background. To be clear, many, many, many bills are filed every session. Few ever see the light of day, and fewer still even get a committee vote. Without Republican backing, these bills aren’t going anywhere. That’s where Sen. Gutierrez’s pledge to force debate by offering gun control measures as amendments on all sorts of other priority legislation comes into play, and is what I’ll be watching for. In the best case scenario, he manages to succeed and get one of these bills passed. More likely, he’s a thorn in Dan Patrick’s side. I’ll take either outcome.

If all we ever do are defensive measures, we’ll never make any progress

Nov 14th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

I’m not saying we shouldn’t do these things, although some of them definitely should be questioned. I am saying we can’t just do things like these.

The Texas Education Agency announced Thursday a plethora of proposals that would, among other changes, require public schools to install silent panic alarms and automatic locks on exterior doors.

Other proposals include inspecting doors on a weekly basis to make sure they lock and can be opened from the outside only with a key. Two-way emergency radios would also have to be tested regularly. Schools would need to add some sort of vestibules so visitors can wait before being let in, and all ground-level windows would have to be made with bulletproof glass.

These proposed requirements come about five months after a gunman killed 21 people, including 19 children, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. The gunman entered a door that had been closed by a teacher, but the automatic lock failed.

If approved, schools would have to start putting in place these safety measures starting in 2023. Before the end of this year, the education department will collect public comments on the proposed rules.

The state has allocated $400 million for increased safety measures that will be disbursed to districts. In the coming weeks, the education department will make a grant application available to districts. Districts will receive those grants based on enrollment, while smaller, rural schools will receive the minimum $200,000.

Proposing these safety measures is the latest action the state has taken to secure schools in the wake of the Uvalde shooting. In June, the education department announced that it would check all the locks on exterior doors prior to the start of the 2022-2023 school year and review every district’s school safety plans.

[…]

As Texas moves forward with different safety measures, experts have said there is no indication that beefing up security in schools has prevented violence. Rather, they can can be detrimental to children, especially Black and Hispanic children. Black students are overrepresented in all types of disciplinary referrals and are more likely to have their behavior addressed by school police officers than their white peers.

School districts also expressed concerns about the cost, because the Lege is famous for under-appropriating funds for things it mandates, and the ability to get this done by the deadline since every other district will be scrambling to do the same and there will be some competition for resources. I share the concern about how effective any of this is – remember that a lot of school shooters are current or former students at the schools in question and can often get through security checkpoints because of that – and of the negative effects on the children at the schools. We’re still dancing around the questions of law enforcement’s response to mass shooting incidents at schools, as certain key players continue to evade accountability. And we can’t even talk about restricting gun sales to people over the age of 21, for reasons that make no sense. There’s an extremely limited range of “solutions” to this problem that are politically acceptable to Republicans, and as long as they remain in power those are the only “solutions” we’re going to get, whether they have any effect or not.

Sen. Gutierrez vows to be a pest about Uvalde and gun control in the next session

Nov 11th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

I’m rooting for him.

Sen. Roland Gutierrez

As he watched a couple load ice chests into their car at a gas station, something didn’t sit right with Roland Gutierrez. The pair were likely on their way to the lake to enjoy the late May sunshine in San Antonio—a normal way to spend the day, he knew. But Gutierrez, the state senator for District 19, couldn’t help thinking how surreal it is that life continues after a tragedy. He was on his way to Uvalde just days after an 18-year-old had opened fire on a classroom at Robb Elementary School, killing 19 students and two teachers.

“I was thinking how sad it is that … we move on with our lives,” Gutierrez said when we met at his San Antonio law office in September. “It’s not an unnatural thing. I get it. When these things happen, we always say, ‘Oh, it’s just too bad. I feel so sorry for those people.’”

Gutierrez represents a massive district that stretches from his hometown of San Antonio west to Big Bend National Park, encompassing a broad swath of southwest Texas, including Uvalde. The Democrat is relatively new to the Texas Senate, taking office in January 2021. His campaign had promised certain priorities: to push for legalized marijuana, to bolster mental health resources for rural Texans, and to improve public schools. Although he hasn’t dropped these issues, nearly all of his public appearances since May have been about Uvalde.

The shooting “changed me for sure,” Gutierrez said. “I won’t be a singular-issue public servant, but it has become a very, very big issue in my life and in the lives of these new friends that I’ve made. … For these parents … there’s no issue out there that matters if you don’t have your kid.”

Gutierrez, a father of two girls aged 15 and 13, has emerged as one of the most vocal lawmakers in the shooting’s aftermath. He called for accountability from the agencies that responded to the killings, appealed to Governor Greg Abbott to call a special session on gun laws, and sued the Texas Department of Public Safety and its powerful chief Steve McCraw to try and force the release of more records about the massacre. The state police agency’s response to the Uvalde shooting only deepened his concern. He’s been skeptical of DPS ever since the launch of the “bullshit propaganda machine for Greg Abbott” that is Operation Lone Star, the multi-billion-dollar border security initiative in which state troopers play a starring role.

[…]

If re-elected, Gutierrez said, he’ll go into the 2023 legislative session with a no-excuses plan: force the issue on gun reform. He plans to spearhead legislation on age increases for gun purchases, expanded background checks, and red flag laws. If that doesn’t work, he said he’ll force debate by offering gun control measures as amendments on all sorts of other priority legislation.

“If they don’t want to talk about guns, and they don’t want to talk about gun violence in this state, well, I’m going to be talking about it,” Gutierrez said. “We’ll have Uvalde families in there. … As far as I can see, those families aren’t going to stop, nor should they.”

I’m sure there are plenty of procedural ways in which he can make a pain of himself – Dems have had some success in this department in recent years, though generally speaking at some point the weight of the majority wins, if not in the same session. I would hope that he’ll have plenty of company – it’s clear that one of the Republican goals for this session is to limit Democrats’ influence, so it’s not like there’s much to lose. Not everyone needs to be actively involved with this, but plenty of Dems will have little else of substance to do, most likely. May as well make some political hay – if you want the public that agrees with you on the issues to support you in the next election, you have to make sure they know who is and is not on their side.

Sen. Gutierrez is already at work on this.

Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez released call logs Monday that he said show Gov. Greg Abbott waited hours after the shooting at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School to have phone conversations about the tragedy with the state’s top cop.

Gutierrez, whose district includes Uvalde, said the late timing of the three calls Abbott made on May 24, the date of the shooting, to the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, shows the Republican governor’s lack of concern.

So do their brevity, the Democratic senator added. Records show the three calls totaled 31 minutes.

“That’s not what leaders do, but that’s what this person did,” said Gutierrez, who shared the call logs during a Monday press conference.

[…]

During his Monday press event, Gutierrez said he received the call logs 60 days ago but declined to share them until now because he wanted to give the state’s investigation into the shooting “the benefit of the doubt.”

However, Gutierrez said he’s dismayed by the lack of transparency from both DPS and Abbott’s office around the shooting. He also accused the governor of bankrolling recent ads against him.

“If he wants to play politics with me and with South Texas, then we’re going to tell the truth,” Gutierrez said.

“This man has done absolutely nothing, which is why we’re sharing this today,” the senator added.

I might have acted sooner than that, but at least we’re all clear about who has good faith. This will definitely be worth watching come January.

More on hoax school shooter reports

Nov 7th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

I don’t know when this ends, but I continue to be worried that they will cause a major problem eventually.

This year has seen a significant number of hoax calls across the country. In the three weeks between mid-September and early October, according to an NPR analysis, local news reports documented 113 false calls across the country. Experts say this increase isn’t surprising given that most school shootings inspire copycats to call in false reports of shootings to law enforcement.

The source of these fake threats remains largely unknown. Law enforcement said some originated from local agitators, while others appeared to come from as far away as Ethiopia, NPR reported.

Regardless of the source, Texas law enforcement agencies say all threats are treated as credible until an investigation proves otherwise. But before threats are deemed hoaxes, law enforcement and parents must grapple with the very real fear that another mass shooting could be underway.

The families with children at Robb Elementary School, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers, also clashed with police outside the building on the day of the tragedy. Law enforcement took over an hour to confront the shooter, despite the fact that some officers knew children were calling 911 from the classrooms. Police outside the building prevented parents from entering the school, even putting some parents in handcuffs.

Prior to the shooting in Uvalde, the chaotic scene outside of Jefferson High School last month wasn’t the norm, said Deputy Chief David Hightower with the San Antonio Police Department.

“Now we see an increase in parents wanting to sort of take matters into their own hands in order to retrieve their children,” Hightower said.

He said the protocols for responding to active-shooter threats have not changed since the Uvalde shooting, but the heightened anxiety of parents and officers reflects the trauma still resonating across Texas. As a result of elevated fears, Hightower said there have been more officers assigned to communicating with parents.

One of the most recent examples of false active shooter threats in Texas was on Monday, when there was a false active-shooter call at Central Catholic High School in San Antonio. Police evacuated the roughly 500 students from the campus in response. After the lockdown was lifted, school officials said they would make counseling available for its students.

“Events like this shake everyone to the core,” said Kathy Martinez-Prather, the director of the Texas School Safety Center at Texas State University. “It is definitely a situation that is at the top of mind of parents right now.”

Martinez-Prather added students are sharing in the anxiety, which she sees as an opportunity to teach schools about how to remain vigilant. Communicating with teachers and students about how to identify potential threats or concerning behavior is one area Martinez-Prather said schools can target to improve school safety. She also pointed to a guide for parents that details key components of school safety as another communication tool.

See here for some background. I couldn’t get all the ay through that story about the 911 calls from Robb Elementary, it was too upsetting. As I said before, when one of these happened at Heights High School, I think the first job is for law enforcement to make extra sure they not only know what their response procedures are but also that they know how they will operate with other agencies that arrive – at HHS, there was HPD, the Sheriff, various Constables, and I’m sure HISD’s police force in response – and who is in charge. And they very much need to communicate that to the parents, who have a justifiable fear following the tragedy at Robb that they can’t simply rely on law enforcement. That’s a problem in itself, and one of many other things that our state leadership has failed to address after this massacre. It’s on the locals in their absence, and I hope they realize that.

We have different definitions of “failure”

Oct 29th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

And by “we”, I mean DPS head Steve McCraw and everybody else.

Weeks after Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said he would resign if his troopers had “any culpability” in the botched police response to the Uvalde school shooting, he told families calling for his resignation Thursday that the agency has not failed as an institution.

“If DPS as an institution — as an institution — failed the families, failed the school or failed the community of Uvalde, then absolutely I need to go,” McCraw said during a heated Public Safety Commission meeting. “But I can tell you this right now: DPS as an institution, right now, did not fail the community — plain and simple.”

McCraw made the remark during a frazzled nearly 15 minutes of comments after several families of the 19 children who were killed spoke during the meeting’s public hearing portion. Two teachers were also killed during the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary.

At least three sets of relatives — as well as state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio — addressed McCraw, sharing the pain they endure every day and castigating government officials who have failed to release accurate and complete information about the shooting since it occurred.

“Typically when situations like this come up, you expect people to tell you the truth, to be transparent, to own up to their mistakes — nothing much to it,” said an uncle of Jackie Cazares, one of the children killed. “But every single time, it seemed like a lie after lie, misinformation, roadblock after roadblock. You can’t begin the healing process.”

Last week, DPS fired the first trooper in connection to the incident, Sgt. Juan Maldonado, who was one of the first and most senior troopers to get to the school. The agency revealed in September at least five troopers were under investigation for their conduct that day.

[…]

As he spoke, relatives of the victims who were present in the room appeared infuriated. Looking at the leader of the state’s top law enforcement agency, they broke their stare to shake their heads.

Afterward, McCraw told the commission he wanted any families present to have an opportunity to respond.

Brett Cross, whose 10-year-old nephew Uziyah Garcia was among the children killed, walked to a podium.

“Are you a man of your word?” Cross asked.

“Absolutely,” McCraw said.

“Then resign,” Cross responded.

Honestly, I can’t add anything to that. I approve of this message. Texas Public Radio has more.

There’s a wave of hoax school shooting reports around the country

Oct 18th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Weird and scary.

When Emmi Conley first heard in September about a rash of hoax calls reporting active shooters in schools, she dismissed it. Conley, an extremism researcher who studies groups and people behind public displays of violence, said she found no indication that these calls were connected to fringe online spaces where these pranks often originate.

But as the number of these reports swelled over time, Conley said she began to discern some very strange patterns — including the possibility that the calls may have come from overseas, and perhaps specifically from Africa.

“The scale and the timeline of the events is highly, highly unusual,” she said. “The calls are consistent. They are coordinated. They are grouped state-by-state and district-by-district, and they’re also sustained. So somebody is putting significant effort to keep these going.”

As Conley began digging further, more questions emerged. Elements of these calls were notably different than what she has typically seen in school-based threats. Nobody has taken credit for these calls, even as they stretched over several weeks, and the technological planning and research behind the calls betrayed a level of sophistication not typically seen.

In a statement, the FBI has said it is aware of the incidents, but has “no information to indicate a specific and credible threat.”

The agency said it is working with law enforcement at every level to investigate the cases. But some news reports, including in Minnesota and Louisiana, have cited local authorities who said the calls may be originating in Africa or, specifically, Ethiopia. The FBI would not comment on this detail.

For Conley, particulars around these calls suggest that the people or person behind them are, indeed, overseas.

“Our big questions now are whose attention are they after?” she said. “Is it the public? Law enforcement? Media? Something else? And why they’re after it?”

The story notes that schools in multiple states have been receiving bomb threat calls since March, and in five states there was more than one such call on the same day in April. This is a form of “swatting”, which is a term that refers to calls that falsely report an act of violence in progress or about to occur. Such calls have themselves sometimes resulted in violence as part of the police response. I’ve written about some recent local examples of similar hoax reports, and while Texas is not mentioned in that NPR story, there’s no reason to think whoever is behind this couldn’t target our state as well. As I said before, this is a grim reminder to school districts and police forces that they need to be thinking about this kind of situation and make sure they have plans in place to respond. Unfortunately, it looks like they need to have a plan in place for dealing with false alarms as well.

In which I pay a few minutes’ attention to the Miss USA pageant

Oct 13th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

What can I say? I love some controversy in niche competitive events.

R’Bonney Gabirel

Just days after Miss Texas USA R’Bonney Gabriel was crowned Miss USA, several other contestants have accused the pageant of favoritism and rigging the competition.

During the live broadcast, several contestants walk off stage as Gabriel was crowned instead of congratulating her. In the days after the pageant, some contestants have aired their grievances on social media.

“I think the most important thing is that all the contestants feel like they have a fair shot at the crown and that starts with more transparency in judging,” said Miss District of Columbia Faith Porter in an interview with ABC news.

Miss Montana USA Heather O’Keefe published several videos on Instagram and TikTok, claiming Gabriel had an unfair advantage and said the sponsors showed a preference for Gabriel.

“Most of the Miss USA contestants feel very strongly that there was favoritism towards Miss Texas USA and we have the receipts to prove it,” she said in her TikTok video.

Nancy Shuster, director of talent and media relations, said in a statement the current allegations made by the 2022 Miss USA class of 2022 are misleading and simply not factual. Shuster said the misunderstanding is the fact that Mia Beauté is a sponsor of the State Miss Texas USA Pageant and a sponsor of the National Miss USA Pageant. Mia Beauté has also recently opened a location at Nizuc Resort and Spa, which is also a sponsor of the national Miss USA Pageant.

Shuster said Gabriel did multiple sponsor visits, one with Mia Beauté, at which time they proposed that she finally visit Nizuc Spa. She said Gabriel paid for her own flight.

“Just as other contestants have been engaged by other sponsors before competing and or winning at the National level, Mia Beauté wanted to use R’Bonney’s diversity and representation as the first Filipina American to win Miss Texas USA,” Shuster said in a statement.

Ms. Gabriel has denied the allegations, as you might expect.

New Miss USA R’Bonney Gabriel is denying allegations pageant officials favored her over other contestants, asserting the competition was not “rigged.”

Speaking to E! News, Gabriel said she would “never enter any pageant or any competition that I know I would win.”

“I have a lot of integrity,” she added.

Gabriel, the first Filipino-American woman to win the title, is a model and fashion designer who competed as Miss Texas USA. Her win was questioned by contestants after the pageant as questions swirled on social media as to why most of the Miss USA contestants walked off the stage after Gabriel was crowned.

[…]

Gabriel told E! she was open to talking to her fellow contestants.

“I want to be transparent, and I want everybody to know that there was no unfair advantage and nothing was rigged,” she said.

The Miss Universe Organization told the New York Post it is investigating the claims.

“We are aware of the concerns that have been brought forth by this year’s Miss USA contestants,” the organization told The Post in an emailed statement. “We commend the women for bringing these issues to our attention and will always be an organization that encourages women to use their voice.

“We firmly believe everyone has a right to express their thoughts and experiences without retaliation and bullying,” the statement said. “There are existing systems in place to ensure the fairness of our national competitions and as such we have begun an active review into this situation.”

I have done no further research and have no opinion on whether any of the allegations have merit. I’m not that interested in finding out and very likely won’t post any followups unless something really interesting comes up. But I do have an interest in our new Miss USA, because of this.

Within days of receiving her crown, new Miss USA R’Bonney Gabriel of Friendswood sparked debate in that city after a publication reported her stance against Texas’ laws on abortion.

Insider reported that Gabriel said that “as a woman, and as a Texan, it was extremely disappointing” to see the state’s near-total ban on abortions that went into effect after the Supreme Court removed federal protections on the procedure. State law only allows an exception for medical emergencies that threaten the mother’s life or impair a “major bodily function.”

[…]

Insider reported that Gabriel, a 28-year-old model and clothing designer, said of abortion, “At the end of the day, I would want a woman to be able to have that decision. In Texas, even if it’s rape or incest, abortion is still illegal — and I disagree with that.”

Chateara Jackson, 30, a Houston resident who works in Friendswood, said of Gabriel, “She’s standing up for what she believes in, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I think a lot of people have the same viewpoint, and she just spoke about it.”

Friendswood resident Joshua Garcia, 22, said he identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ communities and is used to his community speaking out for rights and beliefs.

“With Texas traditionally being a red state and her having the power she has, she’s using her voice,” Garcia said. “It can be hard to speak out on something that can be so controversial. I think it might make old people uncomfortable if they’re fixed in their old ways of thinking.”

Democratic activist John Cobarruvias, whose children attend schools in Friendswood, said Gabriel’s statement represents a generational shift.

“This issue has energized young women, and I’m glad that she spoke out,” he said.

Here’s the Insider story, in which she also expressed dismay with Texas’ ridiculous gun laws. Gotta say, this is refreshing and more than a little unexpected, given the nature of pageant culture. Whatever the case, I welcome her words and hope that if she gets invited to a photo op of some kind with one of our state elected officials that she tells them the same things to their faces.

Uvalde school district suspends its entire police force

Oct 9th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Um, wow.

Uvalde school officials on Friday suspended all of the district police department’s activities following the firing of a recently hired district officer who was revealed to have been among the first state troopers to respond to the deadly school shooting in May.

Lt. Miguel Hernandez and Ken Mueller were placed on leave, and other officers employed with the department will fill other roles in the district, according to a Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District press release issued Friday. Mueller decided to retire, the release said.

The release did not specify why Hernandez and Mueller were placed on leave. A district spokesperson did not immediately return phone and email messages.

The decision arrived 10 days after protesters set up at the UCISD administrative building to demand the removal of officers from campus grounds until investigations into the police department’s response to the shooting are complete.

The district said decisions regarding the future of the department had been pending the results of two investigations, but it suspended the department’s activities Friday citing “recent developments that have uncovered additional concerns with department operations.”

[…]

Upon suspending the police department, the district asked DPS for extra troopers for campus and extra-curricular activities, according to the Friday news release.

Berlinda Arreola, the grandmother of Amerie Jo Garza, a 10-year-old who was among the 19 students killed in the shooting, was walking into her workplace when she received an email with news about the suspension of the school district’s police department. Arreola told her supervisor she had to go.

“Go go go go,” the boss told her.

She went to meet other family members of the victims, who have been gathering outside the school district to protest. Arreola said she hugged everybody.

“This was a huge step,” she said. “But there’s still a lot of, there’s still a lot more that needs to be done and so we’re going to continue the fight because we’re not done.”

I did not follow the story of the former DPS trooper, whose name is Crimson Elizondo, who was hired by the Uvalde police despite being under investigation by DPS for the way she responded to the shooting. You can read the story and click the links to catch up as needed. I’m just trying to think of something remotely analogous to this in my memory, and I cannot. I am absolutely stunned. Texas Public Radio has more.

Texas to appeal that ridiculous ruling that forbade banning handgun sales to those under 21

Oct 1st, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Good. Now we’ll see if their heart is in it.

Texas is gearing up to fight a judge’s ruling that the state can’t ban adults under 21 from carrying handguns, a move that’s drawing anger from some gun rights groups.

Last week, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office filed a notice of an appeal of the ruling on behalf of the Texas Department of Public Safety. It came almost a month after U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump, issued the original ruling on Aug. 25, writing that the Second Amendment protects all adults’ right to bear arms without an age limit. The suit was brought on by two plaintiffs within the 18-to-20 age range and the Firearms Policy Coalition Inc. against the state of Texas.

The notice, which includes Paxton’s name on the filing, did not say the ground on which it would base its appeal. Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for DPS said the agency does not comment on pending legal cases.

But in prior filings in the case, the state has argued that the law does not violate the Second Amendment as it is consistent with Texas’ “longstanding tradition” of restricting access to guns based on age.

See here for the background, and here for a reminder that Greg Abbott is either a bad lawyer, a bad liar, or both. A couple of gun-worship groups are quoted as being disappointed in this decision; I’m sure you can imagine my reaction. I’m glad that the state didn’t just punt on this, but I’ll want to see how they actually act before I give them any credit for it beyond that.

Uvalde parents file lawsuit against multiple defendants

Sep 30th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Keep an eye on this one.

The first major lawsuit has been filed over the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde by the families of three surviving students.

“The horrors of May 24, 2022, were only possible because so many in positions of power were negligent, careless, and reckless,” Stephanie B. Sherman, the lead attorney in the case, said in a statement.

Defendants in the federal lawsuit include the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, the city of Uvalde, former school district Police Chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, suspended Uvalde Police Lt. Mariano Pargas and then-Robb Principal Mandy Gutierrez.

The families also are suing Daniel Defense, the Georgia manufacturer of the assault-style rifle Salvador Ramos, 18, used in the massacre; gun accessory maker Firequest International Inc., over a mechanism that makes a semi-automatic rifle fire like an automatic; Uvalde gun shop Oasis Outback LLC, which transferred guns Ramos purchased online to the mass shooter; lock manufacturer Schneider Electric, over alleged problems with locks on Robb Elementary doors; and Motorola Solutions, over issues with a dispatch communications system that complicated the police response.

Another defendant: an unknown company, John Doe Company 1, that the lawsuit said the district contracted with to ensure security measures were in place and effective.

The 81-page lawsuit, filed in Del Rio, accuses most defendants of negligence, inaction or defective products or systems that enabled Ramos to buy the firearm, ammunition and gun accessories he used to kill 19 students and two teachers. He wounded 16 others.

[…]

“Due to the conduct of the school and police, and the deliberate choices of the gun makers and sellers to directly market their lethal weapons to young untrained civilians, the shooter bought and assembled a military grade assault weapon with 30-round magazines days after his 18th birthday…,” the lawsuit said.

The plaintiffs include Corina Camacho, the mother of G.M., a 10-year-old boy who was shot in the leg in classroom 112; Tanisha Rodriguez, the mother of G.R., a 9-year old girl who was playing with classmates on the playground when Ramos began firing; and Selena Sanchez and Omar Carbajal, the parents of D.J., an 8-year-old boy who saw the shooter firing as the boy headed from the gym to the nurse’s station.

Sherman and Monique Alarcon, Texas-based attorneys for the Baum Hedlund law firm of California, and attorney Shawn Brown of San Antonio allege a host of civil claims, including intentional infliction of emotional distress, product liability and violations of due process, among others.

The suit seeks undetermined compensatory damages against all defendants and punitive damages against all the defendants except the school district and the city.

There was a class action lawsuit announced in August that perhaps hasn’t been filed yet. The intended defendants are roughly the same, but I see in those earlier stories that there was no mention of who the plaintiffs were, and I believe that’s because the final paperwork hasn’t been filed yet. Of greatest interest to me is the inclusion of the gun manufacturer and sellers – there’s a legal example to follow, but I don’t know how effective it will be. Let’s just say that I wish these plaintiffs, and those who follow them, a lot of luck. The Trib has more.

Another hoax shooting situation

Sep 24th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

And this one shows another challenge for school districts and law enforcement to reckon with.

After a lockdown at Jefferson High School sent worried parents to the school, the San Antonio Independent School District says it will enhance communications with families in such situations.

On Tuesday, a report of a shooting at Jefferson High School caused the campus to lock down, sparking a chaotic scene outside the school as panicked parents waited for updates. As school district police officers and other law enforcement searched the campus and found the report to be unfounded, verbal disputes erupted between parents and officers. Some parents had to be physically restrained from entering the school. A few parents grappled with police.

The incident showed how parents of school-age children remain concerned about school safety — and law enforcement response — in the wake of the May 24 Uvalde mass school shooting that left 21 dead. School officials said it’s possible the report of a shooting was a hoax.

Superintendent Jaime Aquino sent a letter Wednesday to all district families praising local law enforcement for responding quickly to the shooting report and explaining the district’s lockdown procedures.

“Yesterday, our officers worked seamlessly with the officers from the San Antonio Police Department as part of our unified command protocol,” he wrote in the letter, adding that 29 district officers and 58 San Police Department officers quickly arrived at the scene.

But as the crowd of parents at the scene grew larger, resource officers informed parents they weren’t allowed to enter and that students could not be released because of the lockdown. Parents grew angry and frustrated as they waited for updates on the situation.

An hour and a half after the first notification to parents, the district informed them that no evidence of a shooting had been found, but by that time some physical altercations had broken out on the steps of the high school.

In his letter, Aquino stated that when a school is locked down, students and staff cannot be released “until officers determine that the threat has been resolved, give clearance, and lift the lockdown.”

To improve communication in such incidents, Aquino said the district will send staff to the campus to keep families on the scene informed of what is happening.

See here and here for some background. As before, I don’t blame any of the parents for their reactions. To me, the lesson here is that schools and police need to recalibrate their responses to take into account the level of anxiety parents are (justifiably!) feeling these days. They need to come up with a strategy that allows for quicker and more direct communication to parents, both those who are at the school that has had a (thankfully fake) report of a shooting, and to those who haven’t yet shown up at the school. It’s in everyone’s best interests to do so. I hope HISD is paying attention to this.

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