Gov. Greg Abbott: Uvalde video shows 'shocking' account of police response
Gov. Greg Abbott: Uvalde video shows 'shocking' account of police response
Gov. Greg Abbott at an event about fentanyl was asked a lot of questions about the leak of hallway video from the Uvalde school shooting. He stopped short of making any comments about the way the video was released. But other elected officials are still explaining why they wanted to wait for the video to come out.
DALLAS - Gov. Greg Abbott at an event about fentanyl was asked a lot of questions about the leak of hallway video from the Uvalde school shooting. He stopped short of making any comments about the way the video was released.
But other elected officials are still explaining why they wanted to wait for the video to come out.
There continues to be fallout from the leaked video from the mass shooting in Uvalde.
While talking about the dangers of fentanyl in Houston, Gov. Abbott was asked multiple questions about the Robb Elementary shooting investigation.
Earlier this week, video from the hallways of the school during the shooting and the police response was released by media outlets in Austin and raised even more questions about what went wrong.
"None of the information that was in that video was shared with me that day, and so it was shocking," Abbott said.
The Texas House and Senate have had multiple committee hearings investigating what went wrong. The House is set to release its preliminary report in a few days.
The initial criticism of the responding officers was based on accounts of the video. But following the release, there were more concerns. One officer was seen casually getting hand sanitizer. Another one was on his phone.
El Paso State Rep. Joe Moody, who is on the House investigative committee, broke his silence and wants criticism of that officer to stop.
He tweeted saying, "This is the husband of teacher Eva Mireles, who contacted him on his phone from her classroom while he was on-scene to say that she'd been shot and was dying."
Uvalde officer who drew outrage for checking phone was waiting to hear from dying wife, lawmaker says
As the investigations continue, Gov. Abbott says the focus is also on next school year.
"There are some things that must be done before the school year begins," he said.
Officials angered that Uvalde shooting surveillance video was obtained ahead of planned release
Both statewide and Uvalde elected leaders have said they want full transparency about what happened in the near hour and a half it took for law enforcement to kill a school shooter. They called for the release of surveillance video on their terms, but an Austin-based news outlet had it and released it anyway.
Safety and door inspections of all schools in the state are going on this summer.
Abbott says he is confident reforms will be made by the legislature but has refused to call a special session on school security.
Video from inside Uvalde school shows officers milling around hallway during massacre
"We will need to wait and see how quickly and exactly what those program are," he said. "However, the status quo is unacceptable."
The original plan for the House committee was to brief victims’ families Sunday and then release new information to the public. There has been no word on if those plans have changed.