Uvalde shooting victims' families sue Texas DPS, 92 officers over botched police response

Nineteen families of the victims in the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde announced a lawsuit Wednesday against the Texas Department of Public Safety and 92 named troopers who responded to the scene of the deadliest school massacre in state history.

The suit, which comes two days before the shooting's second anniversary, contends that the officers received active shooter training but failed to follow national standards and best practices.

In a news conference Wednesday in Uvalde, attorneys for the families also announced a $2 million settlement in a lawsuit against the city that will include better training for police officers.

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed after an 18-year-old gunman entered Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022. The shooting began a deeply flawed law enforcement response that resulted in a 77-minute delay before officers took down the shooter.

Law enforcement agencies including the DPS have continued to face scrutiny for the delay and their response.

The lawsuit alleges that DPS officers had the proper training but “ignored all of it,” the attorney for the plaintiffs said, failing to treat the attack as an active shooter situation and eliminate the threat immediately, citing the Justice Department report as evidence.

The lawsuit also names the Uvalde Independent School District and cites the inaction of Pete Arredondo, former the school district police chief, who is also an officer named in the lawsuit. Arredondo instructed his officers to evacuate the school hallway while he negotiated with the shooter, according to the Justice Department report. The school board fired Arredondo with a general discharge in August 2022, and he has remained out of public view since.

At the news conference, Josh Koskoff, an attorney for the families, criticized the police response and questioned why hundreds of officers were not able to intervene more quickly.

“Three hundred and seventy-six to one … it should have been no contest,” Koskoff said. “But for 77 minutes, how did this kid hold back 376 heavily armed and trained law enforcement?”

The DPS is already facing a lawsuit from 14 news organizations, including the American-Statesman, that requests records from the shooting including footage from the scene and internal investigations. The DPS has not released these records despite a judge ruling in the news organizations’ favor in March, with the agency citing objections from Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell.

The settlement in the lawsuit the families filed against the city includes terms that prioritize “restorative justice,” according to Koskoff, with an agreement for additional, enhanced training for local police officers as well as a “fitness for duty” standard, or specific criteria that officers are required to meet in order to serve.

Also included in the settlement are community-oriented practices to support Uvalde’s “healing process,” including establishing an annual Day of Remembrance on May 24, a city-funded permanent memorial and continued support for mental health initiatives for the families and the community.

The only monetary payment for the families, as per the settlement, is a $2 million insurance payout from the city. Attorneys for the families said any additional legal action could have resulted in bankruptcy for Uvalde, something the families did not support.

This is not Koskoff’s first time representing families affected by a school shooting. He previously achieved a $73 million settlement against gun manufacturer Remington, who made the AR-15 used in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. Koskoff also won a nearly $1 billion settlement against conspiracy theorist and Austin native Alex Jones for stating that the elementary shooting in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax.

Even before the new legal action was announced Wednesday, Uvalde residents were bracing themselves for the anniversary and the grim prospect of being reminded of the worst day of their lives.

Jesus "Jesse" Rizo, who works for AT&T and whose niece was among the children killed, said the shooting's second anniversary on Friday conjures up vivid images of what he was doing when he first heard about the gunfire at Robb Elementary.

In the months since, Rizo said he turned his grief into activism and won a seat on the Uvalde school board this month to be a voice for those families.

"I felt like these families were being bullied, that they weren't being allowed to express themselves," Rizo told the American-Statesman. "I knew that the image was wrong. I had to do something. Sitting idle was unacceptable to me."

State Rep. Tracy King, a Democrat who after the November elections will close out a 30-year career representing his hometown of Uvalde in the Texas House, said there is no single answer for how residents are coping with the tragedy.

"I think the passage of time has helped some, but everybody grieves in different ways," King said. "Some grieve by trying to put it behind them. Some grieve by trying to create a better place for future generations. Others grieve by writing letters and notes.

"I just grieve by railing at the man," he added, referring to the shooter who forever changed the fabric of Uvalde, a town of about 15,000 residents. "But those memories will be there at least for our lifetimes."

King said that, for the most part, the promise by state leaders that Uvalde will get the resources it needs in its recovery efforts has been kept. Last month, Gov. Greg Abbott announced plans to build a $34 million, 32-bed behavioral health campus in Uvalde to serve the counties in the region.

"I think anything that's done to increase access to mental health care is a good thing," King said.

One of the Legislature's most conservative Democrats and hailing from rural Texas, King experienced a change of heart on the always-divisive topics of firearms as a result of the shooting. During the 2023 legislative session, he authored a bill that would have raised the age for legally purchasing a military-style rifle from 18 — the age of the Uvalde gunman — to 21.

The measure won support in a House committee, but it did not reach the floor of either chamber for a vote.

Abelado Castillo, who was born and grew up in Uvalde and returned after a career as a farmworkers organizer, said he hopes the site of Robb Elementary can be transformed into a place of community healing and learning. He acknowledges that such a project would be expensive and even daunting, but he's trying to raise money and awareness for the effort.

"I'm afraid this tragedy will always be out front," Castilo said. "I don't think it'll ever be shuffled to the back."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Families of 19 Uvalde school shooting victims sue Texas DPS officers