In the wake of the Uvalde elementary school shooting, Texas lawmakers have quietly enacted a sweeping mandate requiring all schools to deploy armed security personnel on every campus.
The initiative, known as Texas House Bill 3, was passed by the 86th Texas legislature in 2019 but it wasn’t signed into law until June 14 of this year.
In May 2022, 21 people including 19 kids were murdered in the Uvalde massacre that involved a disastrous response from police.
The school had an armed resource officer but he, along with dozens of others who were ‘armed to the teeth’, failed to breach the classroom or neutralize gunman Salvador Ramos, instead leaving him alone with dozens of school kids for 77 minutes.
The police in Uvalde were slammed for their untimely response to the mass shooting – as officers were seen standing around in corridors before they breached the classroom
The school safety bill was passed following the Uvalde massacre, which claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School
The school safety bill was passed following the Uvalde massacre, which claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in May 2022.
The bill was a bipartisan collaboration between the Texas Commission on Public School Finance and the members of the Texas House and Senate.
There is currently no federal law mandating armed guards in public or private schools, as reported by The Trace, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit outlet focused on America’s gun violence crisis
While many parents and lawmakers advocate for increased armed security in schools, some reports suggest that armed guards may not significantly deter tragic attacks
Gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, shot and killed a total of 19 children and two teachers at the school on May 24. He was left alone in the classroom for 77 minutes before police intervened
The bill comes after the devastating massacre at Robb Elementary School.
Gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, shot and killed a total of 19 children and two teachers at the school on May 24. He was left alone in the classroom for 77 minutes before police intervened.
Following the attack, the entire school district police force in Uvalde, Texas, has been suspended over their failed response.
A report released after the investigation claimed State and federal cops were largely responsible for the vile Uvalde school massacre that left 21 dead, a damning report has found.
The better trained and equipped responders failed to exert the leadership needed when local officers were out of their depth, the Texas House committee probe said.
The 149 US Border Patrol agents and 91 state police were among nearly 400 on the day who should have helped with the ‘unfolding chaos’, the file noted.
The victims of the Uvalde school shooting on May 24, 2022
But the report slammed them for ‘failing to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety’.
The 77-page document blasted ‘system failures and egregious poor decision making’ by nearly all those in power during the May 24 attack.
The report said that officers ‘failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety,’ amidst a chaotic response scene where the people in positions of authority assumed somebody else was in charge.
Though Uvalde school police chief Peter Arredondo did not step up to the duties that were expected of him, the report wrote, better trained and experienced state and federal authorities failed to help local police who were out of their element.
‘These local officials were not the only ones expected to supply the leadership needed during this tragedy,’ the report noted, ‘Hundreds of responders from numerous law enforcement agencies – many of whom were better trained and better equipped than the school district police – quickly arrived on the scene.’
Texas congressman Joaquin Castro said the report’s findings were an important step towards ensuring students’ safety in the future, but said there was a long way to go in rebuilding the trust of Texans.
‘Today’s report on the #Uvalde shooting is an important account of what went wrong and how schools can keep kids safe going forward,’ he wrote, ‘But Texans need full transparency to rebuild our trust – starting with responses to the public records requests submitted since the massacre.’