Uvalde Mayor and Senator Press Gov
on Victim Fund Amid Cover-Up Claims

Capitol Inside
July 5, 2022

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin teamed up on Tuesday with State Senator Roland Gutierrez in a push to have Governor Greg Abbott fire a local prosecutor as the chief administrator of a state-subsidized victim's compensation fund amid allegations of mismanagement since its creation in the wake of a mass school shooting in May.

As McLaughlin accused the Department of Public Safety of a cover-up in connection with its role in a failed police response at Robb Elementary, he and Gutierrez called in a letter to Abbott on District Attorney Christine Mitchell Busbee's removal as the official with oversight over the Uvalde Together Resiliency Center.

Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde in the Texas Legislature's upper chamber, argued with McLaughlin in the message to the governor that Busbee's office wasn't sufficiently equipped for the task of distributing resources at a UTRC that Abbott established with a $5 million outlay from the executive branch.

Gutierrez and McLaughlin asked Abbott to appoint the Texas Department of Emergency Management to oversee the special account. The duo cited "numerous troubling reports" from constituents on the DA's "failure to timely deliver" resources and services that Abbott promised the people of Uvalde in the immediate aftermath of the attack that killed 19 children and two teachers at the school on May 24.

"One Uvalde family was in danger of having their power cut off in their home at the same time they were praying and caring for their daughter in the hospital," the letter said. "Other families have been offered a meager bereavement benefit for only two-weeks of pay. This, simply, is insufficient. These families cannot begin to heal unless they are given time to grieve free from financial worry."

Busbee is a Republican who was elected in 2020 as district attorney for the 38th Judicial District. She has appeared to be aligned with Abbott and the DPS - giving the state police a shield from scrutiny for their own inaction and lack of leadership at the killing scene. Top DPS officials have refused to release public information as required by law under ostensible orders from the first-term DA.

The veil of secrecy appears designed to avoid embarrassment and ridicule for having 14 officers at Robb Elementary where they stood down to local school police chief Pete Arredondo instead of taking command and storming a classroom where a teenager was barricaded with dead and living children for more than a hour. The DPS officers waited instead until a U.S. Border Patrol team traveled to Uvalde and did the job that the state police chose not to do.

The state has been bowing to Busbee since the rampage with the gag order behind which the DPS has been hiding while Arredondo is tried and convicted in the mainstream media, which in turn has given McCraw's officers a pass for their impotence at the school. McCraw has done a masterful job of pinning the blame exclusively on Arredondo while ignoring his own officers invisibility at the scene. Arredondo, who resigned from the city council last week, could be short-lived as the school chief as someone whose life would be in danger if he appeared in public now.

Arredondo - arguably - has been treated unfairly despite a string of errors in calls that he made as the first officer at the scene. But Arredondo had no help from the state.

“I’m not confident, 100%, in DPS because I think it’s a cover-up,” McLaughlin said on Tuesday in an interview with CNN. “McCraw’s covering up for maybe his agencies."

The DPS referred to CNN to Busbee when asked for a comment on the criticism. DPS spokesperson Ericka Beltran dodged the question as well - saying in a statement to CNN that the "Texas Department of Public Safety is committed to working with multiple law enforcement agencies to get the answers we all seek.”

McLaughlin and Gutierrez have been lonely voices in their questioning of the DPS performance at the scene and thereafter. McLaughlin said last week at a council meeting that Buzbee was "holding all the keys to the kingdom" in the futile search for the truth in Uvalde.

more to come ...