Following the tragic events of the Uvalde school shooting, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin announced that Robb Elementary School, the site of the shooting, is set to be demolished.
During an almost two-hour emotional city council meeting, Mayor McLaughlin told residents, concerned parents, and family who lost students in the May 24 mass shooting that he learned that the school would be demolished from a conversation with Uvalde CISD superintendent Hal Harrell.
“You can never ask a child to go back, or a teacher to go back in that school ever,” McLaughlin said.
The City Council also denied Pete Arredondo – the Uvalde CISD police chief and recently elected council member – a leave of absence, leaving him open to being removed from the council after missing three meetings. Residents at the meeting called for Arredondo to leave or be removed from his city council post.
Recently, a special report from the Texas Tribune reviewed the timeline of events from the day and found that many of the officers on the ground at the school arrived on the scene but were told to wait fom those in command. Early in the 77 minutes that the incident lasted, many of the officers were urging those in command to act.
“They had the tools,” said Terry Nichols, a former Seguin police chief and active-shooter expert. “Tactically, there’s lots of different ways you could tackle this. … But it takes someone in charge, in front, making and executing decisions, and that simply did not happen.”
Law enforcement experts say Arredondo was the rightful incident commander, though they were baffled why he abandoned his radios, declined to take charge, and lacked access to classrooms. He has been particularly scrutinized for not taking control of the situation, as he didn’t consider himself the incident commander that day and never issued orders to anyone during the shooting. Yet at 11:50 a.m., according to body-camera transcripts, an officer says, “The chief is in charge.” (RELATED: Report: Eager Uvalde Officers Were Held Back By Unclear Orders)
“At this point it’s clear that a multitude of errors in judgment combined to turn a bad situation into a catastrophe,” said Katherine Schweit, a former FBI agent who co-authored the agency’s foremost research on mass shootings. “The law enforcement rarely thinks their response is textbook, [but] I can’t think of another incident in the United States where it appears so many missed opportunities occurred to get it right.”
Mayor McLaughlin didn’t provide a timeline for the demolition of the school. Uvalde CISD superintendent Hal Harrell announced earlier this month that students from Robb Elementary will be split between Dalton Elementary School and Flores Elementary School in the next school year.
Good. I wouldnt send my chilidren back to that school.
The raw ‘Cowardice’ displayed by the Commander on the scene is breathtaking but all concerned have not been stood down or sacked yet? Why? This is going to cost the State $Millionz in Legal Feez alone!
What a useless, stupid, virtue-signalling waste of taxpayer funds. Maybe it would be a good idea to tear up the adjacent 10 miles of freeway every time there’s a multiple-vehicle wreck, too? I thought schools were supposed to teach critical thinking skills? Or maybe this _is_ the modern version?
Let’s go, Brandon! Remember in November.
Tearing down the building is a way of trying to forget. We should never forget this! No one likes to talk about this but it is a must if we don’t want to go through this in other places. The shooter, obviously, need mental help. Not all studderers go turn out this way but, usually, things like this are caused by people needing help. His mother was an addict- Maybe he needed help. He studdered- maybe speech and special counceling would have helped. He was sent to live w/grandparents a few months before graduation- Maybe he needed help. He didn’t graduate- maybe he needed help. We can’t look into his history because he’s a child but someone, somewhere knew this child needed help !!!!!!!!!! He, finally, couldn’t be ignored, anymore !!! Look what he did !!! If anything, we need to watch for those who need help and be more persistent with the help!!!!! As for the building, the doors need fixed and we need to keep the school going and let it be a memorial to those who suffered !!!! Don’t destroy it. Put the innocent names up for everyone to see and make this school a school that tries to see to it that society is better and helps every child !!!!!!!
Raze the whole school
Rename, rebrand
Hire new staffers
Why not leave it as a memorial for those who needlessly lost their lives because of a COWARDLY police force. Plus, where will you get the funds to build a new school? Come on man, this is Uvalde, TX.
What a damn shame! Tear down a perfectly fine building so everyone can forget about this mass murder of the innocents. Well, those who lost loved ones will NOT forget just because the structure is no longer there.
Instead, why don’t you leave the building where it is & commemorate this tragedy with fresh faced children getting an education in spite of the deranged monsters out there? That way, you could use the money saved to install some security measures to better protect the kids.
Instead of wasting an asset why not turn it into a juvenile detention center?
A juvenile detention center sounds like a good idea.
Absurd tear down the school memories will remain school up or down the media who caused most of the sensualism to begin with will never let it go when it’s a slow news day they continue to bring up sandy hook that school up will remined the kids there is a real world outside of class room
Demolishing the school would be another huge mistake. The school should be remembered not forgotten.
Repaint, remodel but not demolish. I am sure residents of Uvalde are not rich and able to afford to demolish and rebuild a large school for no reason other than it reminds students and parents of this tragedy.
A new school would still carry the memories of this tragedy, that cannot and should not be erased but used to find solutions to why and how to prevent another such event as this.
Unfortunately the mistakes that were made only add to the grief. Use that to create new failsafe procedures to ensure the proper procedures to every situation that police and emergency personnel have to confront.