UVALDE, Texas — A teacher and two Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police officers who were at Robb Elementary when the shooting happened spoke on Friday to a special legislative committee investigating the school massacre.
Before interviewing witnesses, committee members stepped away from Uvalde City Hall to visit the growing memorial at the school and acknowledge the 21 people killed in the mass shooting. Committee members each took a moment to pay their respects before walking the halls of Robb Elementary school.
“The gravity of it, it really is immeasurable, does not have words or significance that I can express,” Chairman Dustin Burrows said.
The committee, once again, pledged its commitment to provide grieving families with answers to questions that have only multiplied since officials released contradictory information about the shooting. Specifically, why police waited more than an hour to confront the killer?
Governor Greg Abbott’s handwritten notes, obtained by the Austin American-Statesman, reveal what the governor was told about the confusing police response.
In his notes, Abbott did not document a rush to confront and kill the shooter.
However, the notes do back up his initial remarks that when officers went in, the suspect was already “contained”.
But after the Texas Department of Public Safety revised several statements, including, that officers waited more than an hour, Abbott publicly voiced his frustration.
“I was misled. I am livid.”
RELATED: 'I was misled' | Gov. Greg Abbott 'livid' after he said he was misinformed on Uvalde mass shooting
Senator Roland Gutierrez and two others told the American-Statesman that Abbott’s briefing was conducted primarily by three members of law enforcement:
- A Uvalde police official, who was overcome and could not finish his presentation
- Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde school district’s chief of police who led the shooting response
- Victor Escalon, a regional director for the Texas DPS
According to multiple participants, Escalon provided the most extensive briefing to Abbott, including that Uvalde officers had “engaged” the gunman. DPS officials told the American-Statesman that Escalon got that information from Arredondo, who they say did not mention the delay.
This special legislative committee is now tasked with dissecting those inconsistencies.
“Before this committee is willing to announce what we believe is to be factual, accurate information, we want to hear from all sides and all different viewpoints and get together and before the three of us put our signatures and names on something,” Burrows said.
The committee is set to continue hearing testimony from witnesses in Uvalde on Monday.