Active shooting training: White crossed with names in black paint and flowers on them in grassy area

Uvalde city officials release records of Robb Elementary shooting that provide new details, reaffirm previous reporting

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Police video, audio, texts and emails released Saturday by Uvalde, Texas, city officials offer new details about the Robb Elementary school shooting while also largely reaffirming reporting about law enforcement’s failure to engage a gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers.

The release comes after a yearslong legal battle involving nearly two dozen news outlets.

In one report, a Uvalde municipal police officer said that law enforcement had to rely on a parent to use bolt cutters to break the locks to the gated fence the shooter had scaled to enter the school. That same officer also indicated in his report that he overheard a female relative of the shooter discuss how he’d expressed suicidal thoughts the night before the May 24, 2022, massacre. And in a 911 call, the shooter’s uncle pleaded with police to speak to the teenager, saying he believed he could talk him down. The call, however, came six minutes after law enforcement killed the gunman.

Text exchanges between Uvalde officers also provide insight into their frustrations after Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw blamed local police in the days following the shooting.

Most other records released by the city, such as body camera footage and audio of 911 calls from children inside the classrooms, were detailed in previous reporting from The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and FRONTLINE after the news organizations independently obtained hundreds of hours of investigative material through a confidential source.

Active shooter drill: Line of several teens with hands up behind heads stand in side building hallway protected by armed police

95% of public schools conduct active shooter drills. Are students safer?

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Lockdown drills aimed at preparing students to protect themselves from school shooters do more to stir kids’ anxiety than their sense of protection, argues Dr. Annie Andrews, a South Carolina mother, pediatrician and firearm injury researcher. “Our children do not benefit from participating in these drills,” said former congressional candidate Andrews, also co-founder of  Their Future. Our Vote. “Children deserve to feel safe in their schools.”

Among those countering that viewpoint is Alex Piquero, a University of Miami criminologist and former director of the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. “We are, unfortunately, living in a world where we just have to plan for school shootings and hope that they never happen,” said Piquero, a former editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.