Uvalde school principal reinstated after review, will now focus on 'healing process,' attorney says



Robb Elementary School Principal Mandy Gutierrez has been "fully reinstated" after a three-day suspension, her attorney said Thursday.

Gutierrez was suspended without pay on Monday after a Texas House investigation into the May 24 massacre of 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, found that she was aware of security problems at the school prior to the shooting but had failed to address them.

But the suspension was lifted and Gutierrez permitted to return to work after a review, her attorney Ricardo Cedillo said, according to the Texas Tribune.

Cedillo released a letter from Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell informing Guttierez that she would be allowed to return to work on July 28.

"Thank you for responding to our request for information by submitting your response to the House Investigative Report," the letter states.

"As we discussed today, with mutual agreement, you will continue to serve the District in an administrative capacity," Harrell wrote. "Thank you for helping us as we work through the transition. We look forward to a successful 2022-2023."

A special legislative report found that among numerous "systemic failures" in the police response to the deadly shooting, Robb Elementary School had a recurring problem with maintaining locks and doors. The report identified a "culture of noncompliance" for locked doors "which turned out to be fatal" after the gunman entered the building through an improperly locked door and then entered a classroom, where he slaughtered his victims.

Gutierrez and at least two other school employees had known the lock wasn't working properly, but no work order was ever placed to fix it, according to state House investigators.

However, Gutierrez rebuffed the findings of the report in a letter to the House committee investigating the shooting. She provided evidence that the classroom door locks properly and said she was trained not to use the school's public address system during an active shooting situation.

“It is unfair and inaccurate to conclude that I ever [became] complacent on any security issue of Robb Elementary,” Gutierrez said.

Asked by Axios if Gutierrez felt vindicated after her reinstatement, Cedillo replied: "Vindication is not what she sought. She sought merely to be allowed to continue her efforts to assist in the healing process for the families in the community she loves.

"She understands and respects that the grieving process might involve anger. That is a natural reaction and she respects and empathizes with everything those affected are going through," he continued.

"She prays for the strength to focus on the healing process that will be prolonged and probably never-ending," Cedillo added.

Uvalde school principal placed on administrative leave as parents demand accountability



Robb Elementary School principal Mandy Gutierrez was placed on administrative leave Monday, her attorney said.

Gutierrez was suspended with pay after a special legislative investigation into the May 24 massacre of 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, found that she was aware of security problems at the school prior to the shooting but had failed to address them, ABC News reported.

Her attorney, Ricardo Cedillo, did not give a reason for her suspension in a "terse" statement to the Associated Press.

School district officials have also declined to comment on the suspension.

A report by the Texas state House found that among numerous "systemic failures," Robb Elementary School had a recurring problem with maintaining locks and doors. Amid questions regarding whether properly locked doors would have prevented the shooter from entering the building or classrooms, the report found there was a "culture of noncompliance" for locked doors "which turned out to be fatal."

The door the shooter used to get inside the building wasn't locked, and the door to one of the classrooms he entered was probably not locked, the report said. Gutierrez and at least two other school employees had known the lock wasn't working properly, but no work order was ever placed to fix it.

Gutierrez's suspension follows that of school district police chief Pete Arredondo, who was placed on unpaid administrative leave in June. The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District has recommended that Arredondo be fired.

Arredondo has been blamed for the failed police response to the shooting. He was incident commander while the gunman shot up a classroom but failed to follow standard police protocol, resulting in children and teachers dying while officers who were equipped to storm the classroom waited outside instead.

The district school board met Monday and approved a three-week postponement to the start of the 2022-2023 school year until Sept. 6 so that officials could improve school security and provide emotional and support services to students, ABC News reported.

Family members of the victims went to the school board meeting and complained that district officials are continuing to be unresponsive and have not held anyone accountable for their failures.

Brett Cross, whose daughter Uziyah Garcia was murdered in the massacre, told board members that only one of those present had reached out to his family, according to ABC News.

"You care more about your damn selves than you do for our children," Cross said, demanding that someone on the board take responsibility for the failures. "Why have y'all still not taken accountability for y'all's mess-ups? Can any one of y'all look me dead in the eyes and say, 'Look, we messed up?'"

Eventually, board member Luis Fernandez admitted that "everybody messed up."

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Ohio's Republican governor will sign a bill allowing school employees to carry guns



Public schools in the state of Ohio will be able to begin arming employees as soon as this upcoming fall under legislation recently passed by the state legislature that will soon be signed by the state’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine.

The Associated Press reported that Ohio Democrats opposed the legislation despite it being optional for schools. Ohio Democrats argued that passing and signing the bill into law sends the wrong message in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas massacre in which a lone gunman killed 19 school children and two teachers.

Despite Democratic opposition, the Republican majority in the state’s legislature insisted that the measure could prevent future tragedies like the one in Uvalde. State lawmakers subsequently fast-tracked the legislation to counter the impact of a court ruling that said, under current state law, armed school workers would need hundreds of hours of training to be permitted to carry a firearm while on the clock.

The Statehouse News Bureau, a regional Ohio-based media outlet, reported that the new legislation reduces the amount of training for school personnel to 24 hours from 700.

Gov. DeWine insisted that the bill will, in fact, protect children by ensuring that the firearm training that school employees will now receive will be specific to respective schools and school systems and will include “significant” scenario-based training.

DeWine said, “Ultimately, each school will make its own decision. So we’re not telling any school district – we have over 600 school districts in the state – the school board of that school will decide whether they want to arm teachers or not.”

He continued, “We will also be giving schools the choice of providing additional training, that we will stake out [and] provide for if they decide that they want more than 24 hours for a teacher.”

Reportedly, major law enforcement groups, gun control advocates, and the state’s teachers’ unions oppose the legislation and requested that DeWine veto it. It is not clear whether they provided alternative policy proposals.

Notably, local police departments and certain school districts within the state expressed support for the legislation.

In the latest version of the legislation, school employees who carry guns will need eight hours of requalification training annually in order to recertify their ability to carry while on school grounds.

DeWine is expected to sign the bill into law later this month. He also recently announced that the state’s construction budget will provide $100 million for school security upgrades and $5 million for security upgrades at colleges across the state.

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A 10-year-old boy was arrested and charged for joking about carrying out a school shooting



A fifth-grader in Florida was arrested and charged this past weekend for threatening to carry out a mass shooting over text message.

On Saturday, the Lee County sheriff’s office said that it had learned earlier that day of a “threatening text message” sent by a student at an elementary school.

The sheriff’s office said that its local school threat enforcement team was immediately notified of the message and started to investigate. The 10-year-old boy who sent the message was interviewed by the authorities and later charged with “making a written threat to conduct a mass shooting,” NBC News reported.

The police shared a video in which the 10-year-old boy can be seen being led into a police vehicle.

Noting that the mass shooting threat came just days after the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in a statement, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said, “This student’s behavior is sickening, especially after the recent tragedy in Uvalde, Texas.”

The sheriff continued, “Right now is not the time to act like a little delinquent. It’s not funny. This child made a fake threat, and now he’s experiencing real consequences.”

Marceno said that his team “didn’t hesitate one second … not one second” to investigate the incident.

Marceno’s emphasis on his team’s rapid response to the threat comes as law enforcement officials in Uvalde are facing intense criticism over their response to the May 24 school shooting after it came to light that they waited for roughly an hour for backup instead of immediately moving to neutralize the gunman.

In response to the atrocity in Uvalde, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are moving to advance a series of comprehensive gun control bills.

Reportedly, congressional Democrats want to implement gun control legislation that would raise the age requirement to buy a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21 years old; make it a federal crime to import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess high-capacity magazines with a grandfather clause for existing magazines; require existing bump stocks to be registered under the National Firearms Act; ban new the purchase and manufacture of new bump stocks; codify into law the Biden administration’s regulations on so-called “ghost guns”; restrict straw purchases for firearms; and create new requirements for storing firearms in homes where minors and young children are present.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team reportedly have been discussing actions they might take on gun control in the wake of the Robb Elementary School and Buffalo grocery store shootings.

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