Uvalde residents demand answers as mayor criticizes release of shooting surveillance video

UVALDE, Texas – A tense exchange during a City Council meeting Tuesday night followed the release of a video from the Austin American-Statesman, part of the USA TODAY Network, that showed police officers’ delayed response to the shooting at Robb Elementary School.

Mayor Don McLaughlin blasted the Statesman and TV station KVUE for releasing the video Tuesday afternoon before family members could see it. Though McLaughlin said the video "needs to be released," he called the decision to publish "chicken" and "cheap."

Some residents applauded the news organizations for shedding light on police inaction when government officials had kept the video secret. Several people attending the meeting said the council should hold the police department accountable.

MORE: Why the USA TODAY Network chose to publish video from inside Robb Elementary

Hours before the meeting, the Statesman and KVUE exclusively published a 77-minute video recording that shows a dozen Uvalde police officers arriving on the scene, two with rifles, less than three minutes after the shooting started. Three approached the door but were brushed back by gunfire from inside the classroom, then they retreated. They waited, along with heavily armed officers from state and federal agencies, for more than an hour – even after hearing more gunfire from inside the classroom – to confront the shooter and kill him.

Watch a recording of the council meeting below, or click here.

State Rep. Dustin Burrows, Republican chairman of a committee investigating the shooting, said earlier Tuesday that the panel planned to show the video to victims' families Sunday, then release it. That version would not include the gunman entering the school and the sound of gunfire – portions that the Statesman and KVUE did not cut, though the news organizations muffled the sounds of children's screams and blurred the image of a child who emerged from a hallway bathroom as the gunman blasted his way into the classroom.

In television interviews Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the video should be released to the public. Department of Public Safety officials supported release of the video, saying it would promote transparency without interfering with investigations.

McLaughlin issued a statement Friday saying the city of Uvalde "overwhelmingly supports the release" of the video, which "is likely to bring clarity to the public, to the families of victims and survivors."

Families “were going to see the video, they didn’t need to see the gunman coming in and hear the gunshots,” McLaughlin said. “They don’t need to relive that. They’ve been through enough.”

Statesman editors decided, after much deliberation, that it was important to include the footage of the gunman entering the school to "chisel away at any conspiracy that we are hiding something," Executive Editor Manny Garcia said in a column explaining the decision to publish the video.

Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee opposed release of the video.

Note: The video footage and audio below are disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.

Residents call for transparency

One of the citizens who spoke at Tuesday's meeting, Adam Martinez, said he’s frustrated by what he views as a lack of transparency from the City Council and mayor as the new school year approaches. Martinez said his 8-year-old son was at Robb Elementary during the shooting.

“It has so many views; that means people want to see it,” he said of the Statesman story, which was viewed by 800,000 people by midnight Tuesday. “It’s hard to watch, but they want to see it. They want to know what happened.”

McLaughlin "is blaming the school board, and the school board’s blaming somebody else, and we’re just getting nothing but excuses,” Martinez said.

EXCLUSIVE: Video from inside Uvalde school shows officers' delayed response to mass shooting

Though McLaughlin said he hasn’t watched the entire video and a full investigation is needed, “every agency that was in that hallway has to be accountable.” He said one part of the video, which showed an officer wearing a helmet squirting hand sanitizer from a wall-mounted dispenser and rubbing his hands together, was “sick.”

Uvalde resident Diana Olvedo-Karau said after watching the video she was “very, very disappointed” to see officers standing in the hallway instead of entering the classroom. She said the City Council should demand answers and “step on some toes” if necessary.

“It's about standing up and speaking out. ... People need answers,” she said, “and they need them sooner rather than later.”

Uvalde City Council accepts Arredondo's resignation

The City Council accepted the resignation of embattled member Pete Arredondo amid claps and cheers from the audience.

Arredondo, the school district police chief, was identified by Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw as the incident commander of the shooting response.

McCraw said Arredondo mistakenly treated the attack as a barricaded subject, which requires a more deliberate response, and not an active-shooter situation, which calls for immediate action.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Uvalde surveillance video showing school shooting criticized by mayor