And again... (Another US Shooting)

spaminator

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Texas school principal suspended after Uvalde shooting
Suspension comes two months after the massacre, which killed 19 schoolchildren and two teachers

Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Brendan O'Brien
Publishing date:Jul 26, 2022 • 20 hours ago • 2 minute read • Join the conversation

The principal of the Texas elementary school where a gunman went on a rampage in May has been suspended with pay, her attorney said on Tuesday, two weeks after a damning report about lax security that enabled the shooter to carry out the attack.


Mandy Gutierrez, principal of Robb Elementary School, was placed on administrative leave by Hal Harrell, the Uvalde school district superintendent, on Monday, her attorney Ricardo Cedillo told Reuters.

He offered no specific reason for the suspension which comes two months after the massacre, which killed 19 schoolchildren and two teachers.

The shooting opened up a new wave of debate over the easy access to guns enjoyed by Texans and many other Americans.

“Ms. Gutierrez has no further comment at this time,” he said.

The suspension follows the release of a report on an investigation by a Texas legislative committee into the May 24 shooting. It found Gutierrez, who was in her first year as principal of the school, knew about security issues around the school.


“Robb Elementary had a culture of noncompliance with safety policies requiring doors to be kept locked, which turned out to be fatal,” the report said, saying that the gunman easily entered the school through an unlocked door.

The report, which marked the most exhaustive attempt so far to determine why it took more than an hour for police to confront and kill the 18-year-old gunman, said “systemic failures” and poor leadership had contributed to the death toll.

The report said Gutierrez and other staff knew that the lock on the door of Room 111 – where the shootings took place – was not working properly, but did not place a work order to get it fixed. That broken lock enabled the gunman to easily enter the classroom, it said.

“If the door to Room 111 had been locked, the attacker likely would have been slowed for some time,” the report said.

In addition to Gutierrez, the school district has suspended its police chief, Pete Arredondo, who has been criticized for his handling of the shooting.
 

Ron in Regina

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Texas school principal suspended after Uvalde shooting
Suspension comes two months after the massacre, which killed 19 schoolchildren and two teachers

Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Brendan O'Brien
Publishing date:Jul 26, 2022 • 20 hours ago • 2 minute read • Join the conversation

…..“If the door to Room 111 had been locked, the attacker likely would have been slowed for some time,” the report said….

Slowed for some time? How much time? A minute? An hour? A day? A week? Indefinitely?
 

Tecumsehsbones

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I guess if they can't pin it on the fat lazy cops who failed to engage the shooter for 45 minutes, the principal is the next choice.
One fat, lazy cop and one principal. And 375 cops and who-knows-how-many administrators and school safety drones at all levels walk away laughing.

And why not? None of THEIR kids were sacrificed on the altar of Mah Rahts.
 
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Reactions: Serryah

spaminator

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Uvalde school board fires police chief criticized for shooting response
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Brad Brooks and Brendan O'Brien
Publishing date:Aug 24, 2022 • 4 hours ago • 2 minute read • Join the conversation

LUBBOCK — The Uvalde, Texas, school board on Wednesday fired the school district’s embattled police chief for his much-criticized handling of the response to a shooting rampage that killed 19 children and two teachers in the city three months ago.


The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Board of Trustees voted unanimously to fire Pete Arredondo, to the applause of family members of victims who attended. Arredondo, who led a small police force tasked with patrolling school grounds, had been on unpaid administrative leave since shortly after the May 24 shooting.


Arredondo did not attend the meeting. A written statement from his attorney, George Hyde, was emailed to board members just before the board met. It cited death threats Arredondo has received and what it said was the district’s lack of efforts to provide any protection for him.




Hyde also wrote that the district was in the wrong for dismissing Arredondo, saying it did not carry out any investigation “establishing evidence supporting a decision to terminate” him.

Arredondo has come under scathing criticism for his handling of the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a small town in Texas Hill Country, about 129 km west of San Antonio.

Parents of children slain and wounded in the deadliest U.S. school shooting in nearly a decade had demanded the school board dismiss Arredondo.

He was forced to resign his seat on the Uvalde City Council on July 2. Three weeks later, the board was scheduled to decide Arredondo’s fate as the school district police chief, but postponed the meeting due to “process requirements” at the request of his attorney.


According to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), Arredondo acted as “incident commander” in charge of law enforcement’s response to the shooting.


DPS officials said 19 officers waited for an hour in a hallway outside adjoining classrooms where the gunman was holed up with his victims before a U.S. Border Patrol-led tactical team finally made entry and killed the suspect.

Arredondo, they said, chose not to send officers to confront the suspect sooner, believing the immediate threat to students had abated after an initial burst of gunfire in the classrooms.

Arredondo, who oversaw a six-member police force before he was fired, has said he never considered himself the incident commander and that he did not order police to hold back on storming the suspect’s position.
 

spaminator

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Uvalde school board fires police chief criticized for shooting response
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Brad Brooks and Brendan O'Brien
Publishing date:Aug 24, 2022 • 4 hours ago • 2 minute read • Join the conversation

LUBBOCK — The Uvalde, Texas, school board on Wednesday fired the school district’s embattled police chief for his much-criticized handling of the response to a shooting rampage that killed 19 children and two teachers in the city three months ago.


The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Board of Trustees voted unanimously to fire Pete Arredondo, to the applause of family members of victims who attended. Arredondo, who led a small police force tasked with patrolling school grounds, had been on unpaid administrative leave since shortly after the May 24 shooting.


Arredondo did not attend the meeting. A written statement from his attorney, George Hyde, was emailed to board members just before the board met. It cited death threats Arredondo has received and what it said was the district’s lack of efforts to provide any protection for him.




Hyde also wrote that the district was in the wrong for dismissing Arredondo, saying it did not carry out any investigation “establishing evidence supporting a decision to terminate” him.

Arredondo has come under scathing criticism for his handling of the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a small town in Texas Hill Country, about 129 km west of San Antonio.

Parents of children slain and wounded in the deadliest U.S. school shooting in nearly a decade had demanded the school board dismiss Arredondo.

He was forced to resign his seat on the Uvalde City Council on July 2. Three weeks later, the board was scheduled to decide Arredondo’s fate as the school district police chief, but postponed the meeting due to “process requirements” at the request of his attorney.


According to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), Arredondo acted as “incident commander” in charge of law enforcement’s response to the shooting.


DPS officials said 19 officers waited for an hour in a hallway outside adjoining classrooms where the gunman was holed up with his victims before a U.S. Border Patrol-led tactical team finally made entry and killed the suspect.

Arredondo, they said, chose not to send officers to confront the suspect sooner, believing the immediate threat to students had abated after an initial burst of gunfire in the classrooms.

Arredondo, who oversaw a six-member police force before he was fired, has said he never considered himself the incident commander and that he did not order police to hold back on storming the suspect’s position.
they should fire all of them. :( 💡
 

spaminator

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Uvalde schools fire ex-Texas trooper who was at shooting
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Paul J. Weber And Jake Bleiberg
Publishing date:Oct 06, 2022 • 21 hours ago • 3 minute read • Join the conversation

AUSTIN, Texas — New outrage ripped through Uvalde on Thursday over revelations that a school police officer hired after the Robb Elementary massacre was not only on campus during the May attack as a Texas state trooper but under investigation over her actions while a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.


The hiring of Officer Crimson Elizondo was first reported by CNN on Wednesday night. Less than 24 hours later, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District fired Elizondo on Thursday in the face of swift and mounting backlash from families of the fourth-grade victims and Texas lawmakers.


But the abrupt firing did little to diffuse anger in Uvalde. Families demanded answers over why the school district’s small police force in the first place hired one of the nearly 400 law enforcement officers who rushed to the scene of the May 24 attack but waited more than an hour to confront a gunman with a AR-15-style rifle.

Adding to some parents’ disbelief was the fact that Elizondo, according to records released to the school district in July by the Texas Department of Public Safety, is among at least seven troopers who were at the scene and put under internal investigation over their actions during one of the deadliest classroom shootings in U.S. history.


“They knowingly hired her,” tweeted Brett Cross, whose 10-year-old son Uziyah Garcia was killed in the attack.

The documents show that after the Uvalde school district contacted DPS in July while conducting a background screening of Elizondo, the agency sent back a letter noting that she was under internal investigation over allegations that her actions were “inconsistent with training and Department requirements.”

In a statement Thursday announcing the firing, Uvalde school officials did not address their decision to originally hire Elizondo.

“We sincerely apologize to the victim’s families and the greater Uvalde community for the pain that this revelation has caused,” the statement said.


Elizondo gave notice of her resignation as a Texas state trooper Aug. 17 and her last day with the department of public safety was Aug. 29, said Travis Considine, a DPS spokesperson.

In police body camera footage, CNN reported, Elizondo is heard telling other officers at the scene of Robb Elementary: “If my son had been in there, I would not have been outside. I promise you that.”

Elizondo’s profile was on the Uvalde school district’s website Thursday morning but had been removed by the afternoon.

Hours before the firing, families had gathered outside the school district’s administrative office to protest the hiring.

“We are disgusted and angry at Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s (UCISD) decision to hire Officer Crimson Elizondo. Her hiring puts into question the credibility and thoroughness of UCISD’s HR and vetting practices,” a statement from some of the victims’ families said. “And it confirms what we have been saying all along: UCISD has not and is not in the business of ensuring the safety of our children at school.”


In July, a damning report cited “egregiously poor decision making” by law enforcement officers who waited more than an hour before confronting the 18-year-old gunman. The campus police chief, Pete Arredondo, was fired in August.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, whose district includes Uvalde, said Elizondo’s hiring “slapped this community in the face.”

“A DPS trooper was on scene within two minutes of the shooter and failed to follow training, protocol, and the duty they were sworn to,” he said. “People’s children died because DPS officials failed to do their job.”

A district spokesperson did not immediately return messages Thursday.
 

spaminator

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Uvalde schools suspend entire police force after outrage
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Paul J. Weber
Publishing date:Oct 07, 2022 • 15 hours ago • 3 minute read • Join the conversation

AUSTIN, Texas — Uvalde’s school district suspended its entire police force Friday amid fresh outrage over the hesitant law enforcement response to the gunman who massacred 21 people at Robb Elementary School.


The extraordinary move follows the revelation that the district hired a former state trooper who was among hundreds of officers who rushed to the scene of the May 24 shooting.


School leaders also put two members of the district police department on administrative leave, one of whom chose to retire instead, according to a statement released by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District. Remaining officers will be reassigned to other jobs in the district.

Uvalde school leaders’ suspension of campus police operations one month into a new school year in the South Texas community underscores the sustained pressure that families of some of the 19 children and two teachers killed have kept on the district.

Brett Cross, the uncle of 10-year-old victim Uziyah Garcia, had been protesting outside the Uvalde school administration building for the past two weeks, demanding accountability over officers allowing a gunman with an AR-15-style rifle to remain in a fourth-grade classroom for more than 70 minutes.

Uvalde families have said students in the district are not safe so long as officers who waited so long to confront and kill the gunman remain on the job.

“We did it!” Cross tweeted.



The Uvalde school district had five campus police officers on the scene of the shooting, according to a damning report from Texas lawmakers that laid out multiple breakdowns in the response. A total of nearly 400 officers responded, including school district police, the city’s police, county sheriff’s deputies, state police and U.S. Border Patrol agents, among others.

The fallout Friday is the first in Uvalde’s school police force since the district fired former police Chief Pete Arredondo in August. He remains the only officer to have been fired from his job following one of the deadliest classroom attacks in U.S. history.

The district said it would ask the Texas Department of Public Safety, which had already assigned dozens of troopers to the district for the school year, for additional help. Spokespersons for the agency did not immediately return messages seeking comment Friday.


“We are confident that staff and student safety will not be compromised during this transition,” the district said in a statement.

The statement did not specify how long campus police operations would remain suspended.

The former DPS trooper who was hired by the district was among at least seven troopers later placed under internal investigation for her actions at Robb Elementary.

Officer Crimson Elizondo was fired Thursday, one day after CNN first reported her hiring. She has not responded to messages left by The Associated Press.



Steve McCraw, the head of the Department of Public Safety, has called the law enforcement response to the shooting an “abject failure.” McCraw has also come under pressure as the leader of a department had more than 90 troopers on the scene but still has the support of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

On Thursday, after Elizondo was fired, Abbott called it a “poor decision” for the school to hire the former trooper and that it was up to the district to “own up to it.”
 

spaminator

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Uvalde school chief plans to retire after community outrage
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Publishing date:Oct 10, 2022 • 5 hours ago • 2 minute read • Join the conversation

UVALDE, Texas — Uvalde’s school district superintendent announced Monday he plans to resign by the end of the academic year, following months of community outrage over the handling of the United States’ deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade.


“My heart was broken on May 24th,” Hal Harrell said in a statement.


The Uvalde school board voted unanimously Monday evening to begin the search for Harrell’s successor.

Harrell, law enforcement, the school board, and other school officials have faced heavy criticism over their actions — and inaction — during the massacre of 19 fourth-graders and two teachers at Robb Elementary School. Officers allowed the shooter to remain inside a classroom for more than 70 minutes.

Texas lawmakers issued a damning report this summer that found “systemic failures and egregiously poor decision making” by both police and school officials.

Harrell’s resignation statement was posted on his wife’s Facebook page because he said he doesn’t have an account.


“I have been blessed to work among amazing educators and staff who believe in education for more than 30 years, which have all been in our beautiful community. These next steps for our future are being taken after much reflection, and is completely my choice,” he wrote.

The Facebook post, first reported by CNN, was initially made public on Monday but was no longer accessible a few hours later. The Uvalde school board did not respond to requests for a copy of Harrell’s statement.

The superintendent’s announcement comes a week after school district officials suspended the entire school police force.

Just a day earlier, the district fired a recently hired school police officer who had been a Texas state trooper on the scene at Robb Elementary when the shooting took place. The district hired the ex-trooper, Crimson Elizondo, even though school officials knew she was one of seven troopers on the scene, all of whom are under internal investigation for their actions that day. She had quit the Texas Department of Public Safety.

That these developments all come just a month into the new school year underscores the sustained pressure that families of some of the slain children and teachers have kept on the district.

In July, the Uvalde school board called a special meeting to hear from parents. At that meeting, Harrell apologized for previously being “too formal” and not letting victims’ families say their piece.