UVALDE, Texas — Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said Monday the focus for his city this week is on the families that lost loved ones in the Robb Elementary School massacre.
"Every funeral opens a wound again," McLaughlin said. "The funerals start tomorrow (Tuesday, May 31) and the last one is June 16."
Special meeting rescheduled
He also announced that a special city council meeting, which was scheduled to happen Tuesday, will not take place. Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo was set to be sworn in as a council member after being "duly elected," according to McLaughlin.
In a release, which was sent Monday by a public relations firm, McLaughlin said in part: "There is nothing in the City Charter, Election Code, or Texas Constitution that prohibits him from taking the oath of office. To our knowledge, we are currently not aware of any investigation of Mr. Arredondo."
Arredondo's decision
Arredondo has been under fire after reportedly deciding that the group of responding officers should wait to confront the assailant at Robb Elementary. They said they believed that the active attack was over, according to Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Prosecutors will have to decide whether Arredondo's decision and the officers' inaction constituted a tragic mistake or criminal negligence, according to experts. The delay in confronting the shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, who was inside the school for more than an hour, could lead to discipline, lawsuits and even criminal charges against police.
Arredondo's decision — and the officers' apparent willingness to follow his directives against established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions about whether more lives were lost because officers did not act faster to stop the gunman, and who should be held responsible.
An official said audio recordings from the scene captured officers from other agencies telling Arredondo that the shooter was still active and that the priority was to stop him. But it wasn’t clear why the school chief reportedly didn't act on their warnings.
In an interview with KHOU 11 sister station KENS5, McLaughlin said he doesn't doubt DPS or the Texas Rangers' ability to handle an investigation, but he wants an outside set of eyes to review it all. He's asked the Department of Justice to conduct its own investigation.
"If there's holes, or we made a mistake, I want to be as transparent as we can," McLaughlin said.
“The bottom line would be: Why did they not choose the strategy that would have been best to get in there and to eliminate the killer and to rescue the children?” Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday about the decision.
Misinformation claims
McLaughlin also addressed some of the issues with misinformation surrounding what actually happened at the school. He said local law enforcement hasn't made any public statements about the specifics of the investigation. He said all statements and comments made to date have come from the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers.
"Statements by Lt. Governor Dan Patrick that he was 'not told the truth' are not true," McLaughlin said.
"The victim’s families deserve answers, and the truth will be told," McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin said something needs to change to prevent something like this from happening again. He said guns and mental health played a part in the tragedy in Uvalde.
"It took a person to pull the trigger of that gun," McLaughlin said. "We need to address both issues. We need both parties to come together and say let's sit down at the table and come up with common-sense rules."
He hopes it can happen, but in the meantime, he's fighting hard for a mental health hospital to be built in the town of Uvalde.
"It's time to quit kicking the can down the road and do something about it," McLaughlin said.
And while there are differing opinions about how to prevent the next mass shooting, McLaughlin said there's one thing everyone in Uvalde agrees on, by the next school year, Robb Elementary needs to be history.
"I don't think anyone's plans are anything but to tear it down," McLaughlin said. "I would never ask ... expect a child to ever have to walk through those doors ever and ever again. And that building needs to go ... taken away and gone."
- Eva Mireles, 44, was one of the first victims identified in the Uvalde school shooting. She was a fourth-grade teacher.
- Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10, was a third-grader at Robb Elementary. Her cousin, Jackie, was also killed in the shooting.
- Xavier Lopez, 10, had been eagerly awaiting a summer of swimming.
- Layla Salazar, 11, loved to swim and dance to Tik Tok videos.
- Uziyah Garcia, 8, was among those killed.
- Rogelio Torres, 10, was killed in the shooting.
- Eliahna García, 9, died in the shooting.
- Nevaeh Alyssa Bravo, 10, also was killed and her aunt noted Naveah’s first name is Heaven spelled backward. Her cousin, Jailah, was also killed in the shooting.
- Eliahana Cruz Torres, 10, was looking forward to her last softball game of the season before she was killed Tuesday.
- Jailah Nicole Silguero, 10, was among the victims. She was Naveah's cousin.
- Jose Manuel Flores Jr., 10, was helpful around the house and loved his younger siblings. Jose loved baseball and video games and “was always full of energy.”
- Amerie Jo Garza, 10, was a happy child who made the honor roll and loved to paint, draw and work in clay.
- Maranda Mathis, 11, was “very loving and very talkative.”
- Alithia Ramirez, 10, was among the victims.
- Irma Garcia, 48, was also killed in the shooting. She taught at the school for 23 years. According to reports, she died while shielding her students from the shooter.
- Jackie Cazares, 9, was killed in her classroom. She was with a group of five girls, including her second cousin, Annabelle Rodriguez.
- Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10, loved school and was killed in the shooting.
- Makenna Lee Elrod, 10, was also killed in the shooting.
- Tess Marie Mata, 10, loved TikTok dance videos, Ariana Grande, the Houston Astros, and having her hair curled.
- Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, 10, recently made the honor roll with all As and received a good citizen award.
- Maite Rodriguez, 10, especially liked physical education, and after she died, her teacher texted her mother to say she was highly competitive at kickball and ran faster than all the boys.
Who was the gunman?
Ramos is from Uvalde and had previously hinted on social media that an attack could be coming. Ramos “suggested the kids should watch out.”
Before heading to the school, Ramos shot his grandmother with two military-style rifles he purchased on his birthday.
The attack began at about 11:30 a.m. when the gunman crashed his car outside the school and ran into the building, according to Travis Considine, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The motive for the shooting is currently unknown.