Law enforcement officers involved in Uvalde shooting response failure win their primaries

Lauren Irwin
·2 min read
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Two law enforcement officers who were involved with the police response failure to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, won their respective Republican primaries Tuesday.

Sheriff Ruben Nolasco and Uvalde County Constable Emmanuel Zamora, who were named in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) scathing report about law enforcement’s failure during the shooting, easily won their reelection contests, according to unofficial results reported by the Texas Tribune.

Nolasco won with 39 percent of the votes, defeating three other GOP challengers in the race. Zamora won with 64 percent of the votes against Republican challenger Robert Moss, the Tribune reported.

Last month, the DOJ released a long-awaited report on the devastating May 2022 elementary school shooting, where nearly 400 members of law enforcement spent more than an hour waiting outside the school while 19 children and two teachers were killed inside. The report found that a lack of preparation, communication and urgency resulted in the police failure.

The report named Nolasco repeatedly in its criticism of officers who responded to the shooting. The reported noted he failed to “seek out or establish a command post, share the intelligence he learned from both relatives, not did he assign an intelligence officer to gather intelligence on the subject,” the Texas Tribune highlighted.

Zamora was also named in the report.

The DOJ’s investigation found that no leader from responding police agencies questioned the decisions to wait outside the school, and that the law enforcement had a lack of urgency.

In February, Robb Elementary families attended a debate hoping to demand answers from Nolasco and Zamora, but the duo did not show up, News4 in San Antionio reported.

Tuesday’s election results show a rift within the community. After the DOJ released its report, families of the victims renewed their calls for police officers to face charges; the report cited unnecessary deaths, as officers detained parents who attempted to enter the school but did not go in themselves.

No member of law enforcement has faced criminal charges. Since the shooting, at least five officers have lost their jobs, including two from the Texas Department of Public Safety and the on-site commander.

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