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Never-Reported Details of the Uvalde School Shooting

ProPublica: “Today, ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and the PBS series FRONTLINE are jointly publishing an in-depth examination of the response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, using a trove of raw materials from a state investigation whose findings have yet to be released. The records include investigative interviews with officers, emergency responders, teachers and children, as well as video footage, audio recordings and photographs. Using these records, we reconstructed the day’s events, showing in painstaking detail how law enforcement’s lack of preparation contributed to delays in confronting the shooter on May 24, 2022. Nineteen children and two teachers died that day. Dozens of others will forever contend with scars, both physical and emotional. Uvalde is one of at least 120 mass shootings since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. Experiences with other mass shootings have taught us that it can take years for communities to learn what occurred. In October, nearly two years after a shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan that killed four people, an independent consulting firm issued a report that found multiple failures. In other cases, such as the 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas, where a gunman killed 10 people, families are still waiting. Many in Uvalde have expressed frustration that they have not had access to more information about the shooting more than a year and a half later. ProPublica and the Tribune are part of a coalition of news organizations that sued the Department of Public Safety, the agency investigating the law enforcement response, for records that it has declined to release. Last week, a state district judge ordered DPS to release records related to the shooting. The agency has said it plans to appeal the decision. The journalism that ProPublica, the Tribune and FRONTLINE are publishing today will fill some of the void for those who want to better understand what happened and hopefully provide needed insights — and very likely raise important questions.”

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