School officials in Uvalde, Texas, on Monday released text messages, personnel files, student records of the shooter and police body camera video from the 2022 attack at Robb Elementary School, following a yearslong legal battle over public access to the material.
The records include emails between top school district officials and also text messages and emails to and from at least two school police officers who were on the scene. The release also contains the personnel file of former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo, who has been described as the on-scene commander of the law enforcement response.
The release included a handful of text exchanges between Arredondo and others at the district that were sent before the shooting. At 9:04 a.m., the chief told officer Adrian Gonzales to “go hang out at the park with the seniors until 11:30.” At 11:40 a.m. a text to Arredondo from a district secretary noted someone reported hearing shots outside Robb Elementary.
“They went ahead and locked themselves down,” the text to Arredondo read. At 1:07 p.m., a text to Arredondo asked if any students were injured or taken to the hospital and asked if the district can lift the “secure status” on the school. The shooter had been killed by law enforcement about 15 minutes earlier.
Several bodycam videos show officers from multiple departments inside the school hallway and standing outside. Officers milling about suggest throwing gas in the window or searching for a key to the locked classroom, but it’s unclear any of those suggestions are taken or who is in charge.
Within minutes, parents making their way to a fence near the school and yell at officers them to do something.
“Whose class is he in?” one parent can be heard yelling. Another yells: “Come on man, my daughter is in there.” Another parent not seen on the video angrily says, “Either you go in or I’m going in bro,” adding a few seconds later, “My kids are in there, bro … please.”
In one video, an officer involved in the initial response can be heard saying, “We can’t see him at all” before adding, “We were at the front and he started shooting.”
The officer wearing the body cam asks: “He’s in a classroom, right?” Another officer responds: “With kids.”
Media organizations, including CBS News and The Associated Press, sued the district and county in 2022 for the release of their records related to the mass shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.
A Texas appeals court in July upheld a lower court’s ruling that the records must be released.
Eric Gay / AP
The records are not the public’s first glimpse inside one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings and a slow law enforcement response that has been widely condemned. Last year, city officials in Uvalde released police body camera videos and recordings of 911 calls.
Nearly 400 officers waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the gunman in a classroom filled with dead and wounded children and teachers. Multiple federal and state investigations into the response have laid bare cascading problems in law enforcement training, communication, leadership and technology, and questioned whether officers prioritized their own lives over those of children and teachers.
Two school district officers face criminal charges for their actions that day. The former schools police chief, Arredondo, and former officer Adrian Gonzales both face multiple counts of child endangerment and abandonment. Both men have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled for trial later this year.
They are the only two responding officers to have been charged.
Laura Prather, media law chair for Haynes Boone, which represented the media organizations in the suit, said in a statement Monday night: “More than three years after the Robb Elementary School shooting, the release of long-withheld public records by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District is an important step toward giving the community the answers they deserve. The court’s ruling makes clear that government agencies cannot hide behind vague legal claims to withhold public information.”
“Three years is already too long to wait for truth and transparency that could prevent future tragedies,” Prather added.
