On Tuesday, a city council meeting was held where Uvalde mayor Don McLaughlin shared that Robb Elementary will be torn down. Last month, a mass shooting at the school left 19 children and 2 teachers dead.
“My understanding — I had a discussion with the superintendent — that school will be demolished,” McLaughlin stated. “We could never ask a child to go back, or a teacher to go back into that school ever.”
Although there hasn’t been a timeline given for the demolition, President Joe Biden agreed that the site should be destroyed. During the council meeting, McLaughlin also voiced his dissatisfaction when it came to the investigation at Robb Elementary as well as how horribly police handled the situation:
“I’m very frustrated with the way they’re handling it. Very frustrated because, like I said, we’re not getting any information. The gloves are off. As we know it, we will share it. We are not going to hold back anymore. We kept quiet at the request (of other agencies) because we thought we were doing a formal investigation and doing the right thing. What matters to Uvalde is that these broken-hearted families and this grieving community get a full investigation and accurate report of what happened that day.”
Also on Tuesday, Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw addressed the Texas Senate committee to talk about how law enforcement could have stopped the shooter at Robb Elementary if the commander acted sooner.
“The officers had weapons; the children had none,” McCraw said. “The officers had body armor; the children had none. The officers had training; the subject had none. One hour, 14 minutes and eight seconds. That’s how long children waited, and the teachers waited, in Room 111 to be rescued.”
“I don’t mean to be hyper-critical of the on-scene commander,” McCraw testified. “But those are the facts. This set our profession back a decade.”