Families asked what more District Attorney Christina Mitchell needed to remove officials from their positions
Parents who heard Thursday of the "complete failure" of law enforcement the day their children were shot dead at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, called for criminal charges to be brought against the officers who let them down.
Speaking after the Department of Justice report on the response to the Robb Elementary School shooting on May 24, 2022, emotional relatives of the 19 children killed called for officials to "do what wasn't done that day" and do right by the victims.
One father thanked the DOJ for its work and said all the officers named in the report needed to be held accountable for their delay in taking out the gunman.
"Maybe y'all will start taking us seriously now, instead of telling us to move on, telling us to sweep it under the rug and not doing a damn thing about it," he said.
"It's hard enough waking up every day and continuing to walk out on these streets... and see a cop who you know was standing there while our babies were murdered and bleeding out."
The report intentionally omits the identity of the gunman or any explanation of a possible motive. But it does include page-long remembrances of each of the victims, including 10-year-old Jose Flores Jr., who loved cars and the Houston Astros, and Amerie Jo Garza, who on the morning of the shooting had celebrated her appointment to the honor roll.
And it highlights anguished and panicked quotes from a 911 call by students trapped in the classroom — “Help!” “Help!” “Help!” “I don't want to die. My teacher is dead” — experiencing “unimaginable horror” while officers stood just outside in the hallway.
The families said they hoped that the report would prompt Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell to take action and pursue criminal charges, including for those lower-ranked officers not named in the report.
"I don't understand why they are allowed privacy," Kimberly Mata-Rubio, whose daughter Lexi was killed, said.
"My child, their children, they are named in this report because they are dead. Everybody should have been named."
The D.A.'s report has been delayed multiple times, with her office stating in December that the investigation would continue into 2024.
"What else does she need?" Another relative said. "What else does she possibly need to prosecute or to remove people from these positions of power?"
Part of the report spoke of the miscommunication with the community on the day of the shooting and in the days after. Some relatives were given conflicting details on whether their children were safe.
"We knew, as families, the failures that had happened. It just has more clarity now, because it is written," one mother said.
Mata-Rubio said that it was clear that no one was safe while weapons like the automatic rifle used by the shooter were on the streets.
In reaction to the report, President Biden promised a review into what went wrong and said he would continue to call on Congress to pass commonsense gun safety legislation including universal background checks, red flag laws, and banning high-capacity magazines.
With The Associated Press