‘Uvalde Strong Act' passes Texas Senate amid calls for bolder action
A bill that aims to better prepare law enforcement agencies to respond to mass shootings to avoid a repeat of the 2022 massacre at a Uvalde elementary school sailed through the Texas Senate and will likely be on its way to the governor's desk soon — but some fear the measure does not go far enough to prevent future tragedies.
House Bill 33, titled the "Uvalde Strong Act," passed the upper chamber unanimously Monday after clearing the House with no opposition April 29. The House is expected to concur with Senate tweaks to the legislation and send it for a gubernatorial signature.
On May 24, 2022, three years ago this Saturday, a gunman entered Robb Elementary School and killed 19 children and two teachers, marking the state's deadliest school mass shooting. As the tragedy unfolded, nearly 400 police officers waited more than an hour to confront the shooter.
HB 33 introduces a slew of new requirements for schools and first responders. It requires school districts and multiple law enforcement agencies to meet together each year for planning and training, and it mandates annual mass shooting exercises. It requires the Texas Department of Public Safety to make agreements with local agencies detailing how the departments would coordinate with one another during an emergency.
The legislation also gives responding officers the ability to override an incident commander and take control of a scene if the officer believes the response is inadequate or the situation is unsafe. It requires responding agencies to prepare a preliminary report by 60 days after an incident.
"This tragedy has exposed critical failures in law enforcement preparedness, response coordination and school safety protocols, making it clear that Texas must take action to address our current shortcomings and future readiness for active shooter situations," said Sen. Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton, who sponsored the bill in the Senate.
More: 'Uvalde Strong Act' passes unanimously out of Texas House Committee: 'One step closer'
The bill is the first from freshman state Rep. Don McLaughlin, who was Uvalde's mayor during the 2022 shooting, and was identified as a priority by House Speaker Dustin Burrows, who led the lower chamber's investigation into the botched shooting response. McLaughlin, a Republican who now represents the South Texas town of about 15,000, praised the bill's passage in a statement Monday.
"This is about keeping our schools safer and making sure law enforcement and first responders are never set up to fail," McLaughlin wrote. "We owe it to the families to take action that actually matters. HB 33 does that."
But San Antonio Democratic Sen. Roland Gutierrez, whose district includes Uvalde, said "more must be done" to heal from from the shooting and prevent future tragedies.
"We need to do better on common sense gun safety solutions. We need to do better on how we take care of people after these things happen. We need to do better on victims compensation funds," Gutierrez said on the Senate floor. "I promise you, and sadly, this will happen again, no matter how many pieces of legislation we put up, until we begin to truly look at the root problems that are hurting us in this state on gun violence."
Brett Cross, whose 10-year-old son Uziyah was killed in the Robb Elementary shooting, told the American-Statesman on Tuesday at the Capitol that the bill won't stop future tragedies but is instead a "reactionary measure ... just to placate people."
"If (McLaughlin) wants to put out a bill that will actually save children's lives, that could have saved Uziyah and all the other ones in Uvalde, it would have been to raise the age (to buy assault weapons from 18 to 21). It would have been red flag laws. It would have been safe storage laws. It would have been universal background checks; to end the gun show loophole," Cross said. "The Republicans, especially in Texas, do not care about the youth. They do not care about our children. They care about the money that they make from the NRA."
Staff writer Bayliss Wagner contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Legislature OKs Uvalde Strong Act to bolster shooting response
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