The release is part of a lawsuit filed by TEGNA Texas, which includes this station, and several other media outlets.
KNIPPA, Texas — School officials in Uvalde, Texas, on Monday released text messages, personnel files and student records of the shooter from the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School, ending a yearslong legal battle over public access to the material.
The records include disciplinary documents for Salvador Ramos, the teenaged shooter and student at Uvalde High School. Ramos had behavior issues with hitting other kids and using foul language. He failed state tests and had a lot of absences and missed schoolwork.
The records include emails between top school district officials and also text messages and emails to and from at least two school police officers who were on the scene. The release also contains the personnel file of former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo, who has been described as the on-scene commander of the law enforcement response.
The release included a handful of text exchanges between Arredondo and others at the district that were sent before the shooting. At 9:04 a.m., the chief told officer Adrian Gonzales to “go hang out at the park with the seniors until 11:30.” At 11:40 a.m. a text to Arredondo from a district secretary noted someone reported hearing shots outside Robb Elementary.
“They went ahead and locked themselves down,” the text to Arredondo read. At 1:07 p.m. a text to Arredondo asked if any students were injured or taken to the hospital and asked if the district can lift the “secure status” on the school. The shooter had been killed by law enforcement about 15 minutes earlier.
Media organizations, including TEGNA Texas (WFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth, KHOU in Houston, KVUE in Austin, KENS in San Antonio, KCEN in Waco-Temple-Killeen, KYTX in Tyler-Longview, KBMT in Beaumont-Port Arthur, KIII in Corpus Christi, KWES in Midland-Odessa, KIDY in San Angelo, and KXVA in Abilene) and the Associated Press sued the district and county in 2022 for the release of their records related to the mass shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.
A Texas appeals court in July upheld a lower court’s ruling that the records must be released.
The records are not the public’s first glimpse inside one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings and a slow law enforcement response that has been widely condemned. Last year, city officials in Uvalde released police body cam videos and recordings of 911 calls.
Nearly 400 officers waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the gunman in a classroom filled with dead and wounded children and teachers. Multiple federal and state investigations into the response have laid bare cascading problems in law enforcement training, communication, leadership and technology, and questioned whether officers prioritized their own lives over those of children and teachers.
Two school district officers face criminal charges for their actions that day. Former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo and former officer Adrian Gonzales both face multiple counts of child endangerment and abandonment. Both men have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled for trial later this year.
They are the only two responding officers to have been charged.
What records were released?
The school district released disciplinary and academic records for Salvador Ramos, the teenaged shooter.
It also made public personnel files and other records related to Pete Arredondo, the former Uvalde schools police chief who was fired and indicted for his role in the police response.
Records from the county are expected to be released later this week. They may include incident and 911 reports concerning Robb Elementary and other locations; sheriff dispatch logs and radio traffic; video footage; ballistics and evidence logs; and reports of law enforcement interactions with the shooter and his mother.
It’s not yet clear how much of this information has already been publicly released.
Families of victims have also pushed for information
Families of the victims have long sought accountability for the slow police response.
“There’s nothing in those records and those files that can hurt any one of us any more than the pain that we’ve already endured. Once released, there will be questions. Transparency will come. There may be some blame. Accountability will come,” Berlinda Arreola, grandmother of 10-year-old victim Amerie Jo Garza, told the Uvalde school board before the board voted to approve the records’ release on July 21.
What legal battle remains over the release of records?
The Texas Department of Public Safety is still fighting a separate lawsuit filed by media organizations for the release of that agency’s records related to the school shooting.
DPS has said the release of its records could be “dangerous” because it would make law enforcement vulnerable by exposing information about how officers do their jobs and it could also complicate prosecutions in the case, according to court records.
The lawsuit over DPS’s records remains pending with the 15th Court of Appeals in Texas.
Two officers set to stand trial for response
Two of the responding officers face criminal charges. Arredondo and former school officer Adrian Gonzales have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of child abandonment and endangerment. They are set to face trial on Oct. 20.
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