Uvalde Shooting Investigator Says Police Acted In 'Good Faith'
Families in Uvalde, Texas, stormed out of a recent City Council meeting after an investigator said that local police officers did not commit any wrongdoing in their response to the 2022 Robb Elementary shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
On Thursday, Jesse Prado, a former police detective and Austin-based investigator, presented his findings in a report. The Uvalde City Council hired Prado to investigate the shooting.
Although Prado highlighted certain failures made by officers who were present at the shooting — including communication issues, inadequate training and a lack of equipment — he found no wrongdoing by any Uvalde police officers and said that they acted in “good faith.” As Prado was speaking, several people in the audience walked out.
After giving his presentation, Prado left. Kimberly Mata-Rubio, whose daughter, Lexi, was killed in the shooting, erupted, telling the City Council to “bring [Prado] back” so she could address her comments directly to him. When he returned, Mata-Rubio told him, “How dare you? How dare you?”
“There were multiple law enforcement officers from multiple agencies that stood by for 77 minutes as children and teachers died, and I’m not going to stand by,” she said.
Brett Cross, whose 10-year-old son was murdered in the shooting, also spoke. He told Prado that he wasn’t surprised by the investigator’s findings before acknowledging a child in attendance named AJ, who Cross said was shot during the shooting.
“[AJ] has more balls than this whole damn town, every police [officer] in this son of a bitch,” Cross said. “So, I want y’all to look at him.”
“The true heroes are those who passed, those teachers, the survivors are heroes,” he continued.
Prado did not immediately return HuffPost’s request for comment.
Prado’s investigation comes shortly after two law enforcement officers, who were highlighted for their inaction during the shooting, won their primaries.
Uvalde County Constable Emmanuel Zamora and Sheriff Ruben Nolasco won their Republican primaries on Tuesday. Both were named as leaders who failed to act in a report on the shooting that the Justice Department released in January.
The report was notably critical of Nolasco, saying that he “did not seek out or establish a command post, establish unified command, share the intelligence he learned from both relatives, nor did he assign an intelligence officer to gather intelligence on the subject.”
Nearly 400 police officers were on the scene the day of the shooting, which took place May 24, 2022. Officers waited more than an hour to breach the door of the classroom the killer was in.
Following the shooting, at least five officers lost their jobs, including two from the Texas Department of Public Safety and Pete Arredondo, who was the Uvalde school district’s police chief.
