A lawsuit against Daniel Defense, Firequest International, and an 18-year-old gunman in Uvalde, Texas, alleged by parents of survivors of the Robb Elementary School massacre
Parents of survivors of the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas, have filed a federal lawsuit against multiple entities – including the gun manufacturer, school district and city – for a host of allegations, including negligence and recklessness.
Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the May 24 shooting after an 18-year-old gunman walked into Robb Elementary and began firing into classrooms.
The complaint claimed that Daniel Defense chose not to do any studies evaluating the effects of their marketing strategies on the health and well-being of Americans and that they did not look at the cost to families and communities in Texas.
The complaint notes that the Georgia-based company had a photo of a toddler on its website with a caption: “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is older, he will not depart from it.”
The claim also says Firequest International, Inc., which manufactures accessory trigger systems, similar to illegal bump stocks, sells its products to untrained civilians, young adults and minors in Uvalde. These types of devices allow semi-automatic rifles to fire more rapidly, similar to automatic weapons.
“The Uvalde school shooter’s background check was clean, and Oasis Outback sold him the guns and ammunition knowing he was suspicious and likely dangerous,” according to the legal document. “The store owner and his staff did not act on their suspicions and block the purchases or notify law enforcement.”
The gunman legally purchased two AR platform rifles at a local federal firearms licensee on May 17 and on May 20. On May 18, he purchased an additional 375 rounds of the same type of bullets.
The Uvalde School Phenomenology: An Attorney’s Comment on a Report of an Unspeakable Shooting Involving a New Employee
The statement from the district said they were distressed by the information about one of their recently hired employees. We apologize to the victim’s family and the Uvalde community for the pain this revelation has caused. Ms. Elizondo’s statement in the audio is not consistent with the District’s expectations.”
“While Uvalde PD did make an early attempt to breach the classroom, they retreated and never tried again. The claim stated that the scene remained active and that the police had to stop the killing no matter how many times it took.
The suit also faults Lt. Mariano Pargas, the city’s acting police chief on the day of the massacre, as well as two other companies, claiming defects in their products were factors in the response to the shooting. The claim stated that the radios used by some first responders were faulty and dangerous due to lack of warnings or instructions.
Lawyers also say Schneider Electric, the manufacturer of the door locking mechanisms used at the school, “failed to lock as designed after being shut.”
“What happened in Uvalde was an unspeakable tragedy that we condemn in the strongest terms,” Schneider Electric spokesperson Venancio Figueroa III told CNN. We are not able to comment on pending litigation, but we are looking at the recent filing.
Daniel Defense, Oasis Outback, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, FireQuest International, Motorola Solutions, Inc., Pargas and Arredondo have all not responded to CNN request for comment.
The Uvalde School District fired an officer after CNN discovered she was a student during the May 24th Robb Elementary School massacre in Puerto Rico
An incorrect name was included in a previous version. The name has been removed from the complaint because that person is not a party.
The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District fired a newly hired school officer on Thursday after CNN identified her as one of the officers under investigation for her actions during the Uvalde school massacre in May.
The moves come in the wake of a CNN report which named the new Uvalde school officer as part of the investigation into the response to the Robb Elementary School massacre.
She is wearing her Texas Department of Public Safety uniform, handgun drawn, outside the Uvalde school building, and is seen briefly in the hallway on the body camera footage of another officer.
After the attack, the school district wanted to make 10 more officers. Elizondo was hired as a police officer over the summer, but her photo and that of four other police officers, one lieutenant and one security guard are on the website under the banner “KEEP U.C.I.S.D. SAFE.”
The police department still makes personnel decisions based on information. An independent investigation was launched to assess the actions of current officers on May 24, 2022. We are awaiting the results of a management and organizational review of the Police Department that will aid the district in taking informed actions to assure the safety and security of our schools.
The District made the decision to suspend all activities for a period of time. The district said in a statement that officers working in the district will fill other roles.
The restriction doesn’t apply to Elizondo in her new position. Children and parents walked past her as they headed into the school year at Uvalde Elementary, the new home for the younger students who survived the Robb bloodshed.
According to family members, she was seen in the body camera footage that was released by the mayor.
The statement from the family representatives calls for all department officers to be suspended until a third-party investigation has finished and the results have been released to the public.
Our children have been taken from us. We will not give up until we have answers and that the safety of the kids in our community is our top priority, the statement said.
The school board met with him and he said that they offered to pull such officers to off-campus roles. He will be holding a demonstration outside the school board offices until the officers are suspended.
The memos reviewed by CNN and the audio offer evidence that contradicts the official DPS narrative that its officers were never in control or issuing substantive orders. Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, the school district’s police chief, has been criticized multiple times by the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety for leading the “abject failure” of a response. Arredondo has said that he did not see himself as the incident commander.
According to sources familiar with the inquiry, Elizondo told investigators she wasn’t comfortable entering the school without her gear because she wasn’t properly equipped.
She does not approach the school but stays with officers from other agencies outside the fence until a call comes over the radio, “Shots fired inside the building!”
Correlations in the Uvalde tragedy – what happened when a student was injured in the hallway – ended up in disarray
After that, there plays out on the recordings the more than one hour of confusion and delay before anyone goes to help the trapped staff and students in rooms 111 and 112, the catalog of errors that has become part of the Uvalde tragedy.
She went to get supplies for a colleague as she prepared for what became the final breaching of the law. She was not at the school when the shooter was killed.
After the students came out of the classrooms, the hallway in which so many had stood became a scene of carnage as officers assessed their injuries.
Elizondo was soon there, urging students to “go, go, go” if they were able, and not to look at their injuries or the blood on the floor. She consoled the boy as an officer checked his wounds, telling him that he would be okay and that his parents would soon be told.
Two weeks later, official notes of a meeting showed that McCraw said nobody is going to lose their jobs. He told CNN, that he was misquoted in the minutes and that he would not allow anyone to get a pass.
He said he would release all the information when he could, but the local district attorney has asked him not to do so until the criminal investigations are completed, a process he has acknowledged could take years.
CNN is part of a coalition of news organizations that are trying to get access to the records relating to the investigation.
Elizondo, 42, a student officer with a public safety duty in the Texas Department of Public Safety, and her resignation on administrative leave
Elizondo’s base salary was raised 12% one year ago according to a database compiled by The Texas Tribune. She joined in the beginning of the year.
The posted demands include a mental and physical ability to deal with personal danger which could include sudden exposure to armed persons.
On May 24, as she rode the school bus back to Robb Elementary from the hospital, she told another officer: “Nothing could prepare you for what they brought out. It was horrible.”
The school district later announced the suspension of its police force operations and placed a lieutenant and another top school official on leave as part of its investigation.
On Friday, the school district said in a statement that it had placed the officer who took over for Mr. Arredondo, Lt. Miguel Hernandez, and another district employee, Ken Mueller, on administrative leave. The statement said that the director of student services had decided to retire.
“The District has requested the Texas Department of Public Safety to provide additional troopers for campus and extra-curricular activities,” the district said. Student safety will not be compromised during the transition.
Superintendent Hal Harrell told district staff Monday’s school board meeting will include a closed session to “discuss superintendent retirement options and transition,” according to an email obtained by CNN.
The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Firefighter Gary Patterson retires after 24 Hours of the May 11 Slew at Robb Elementary School
When residents voiced concerns that the officers who failed to stop the killing would be called to protect the school, a parent told CNN that he had beenassured that the officers would not have responded.
“Recent developments have uncovered additional concerns with department operations,” the district said, adding that currently employed officers will move to other roles in the district. A report on the investigation is due later this month.
Brett Cross, whose 10-year-old son Uziyah Garcia died in the shooting, had been protesting outside the Uvalde school administration building, demanding transparency and accountability — the first step of which he tweeted as being the suspension of involved officers. After 254 hours outside the building, demonstrators went home when UCISD issued the press release.
On Wednesday, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District board voted for Gary Patterson to serve as the interim superintendent. The board voted unanimously that two staff members will continue their search for a permanent replacement.
Harrell had announced last week he’d step aside amid continued backlash over the way officials and law enforcement responded to the massacre at Robb Elementary School in May, when an 18-year-old gunman opened fire and slaughtered 19 children and two teachers.
“I am truly grateful for your support and well wishes. My decision to retire has not been made lightly and was made after much prayer and discernment,” read the October 10 post on social media. It was a difficult decision for me and my wife, because we both grew up in this community and we love you all.
The Texas Department of Public Safety’s response to the Robb Elementary massacre on May 24: How the State of the Police Responded to the Incident was Detected
The law enforcement response was condemned from the beginning. And agencies have blamed each other in changing narratives since the massacre on May 24, for not following up on the initial attempt to go into the classroom when the gunman fired back, to treating the suspect as barricaded but not an active threat, and long waits for equipment and specialist personnel.
The sister of a teacher killed in the school shooting has demanded that all board members resign and that the principal and vice principal leave their positions.
On May 24th, my heart was broken and I will always pray for the families and friends of those that have died, according to a social media post.
The delayed response to the shooting by law enforcement has been heavily criticized and is contrary to a widely taught protocol for active shooter situations.
Chilling audio recordings have surfaced from children and teachers trapped inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, during the mass shooting there in May. The recordings show a new level of details in law enforcement’s failure to respond quickly when there is an active shooter. CNN, The Texas Tribune, and ProPublica all reported on the story.
The chaotic, prolonged response on May 24 has been decried as a failure for months. But full details of what happened and when are still being withheld and Texas’s top cop did not provide an update as expected at a public meeting last week. Col Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, listened to family members’ anger, and acknowledged some mistakes before saying his officers did not fail the community.
The officer who was the first to arrive on the scene spoke with another officer who asked if she had children at the school.
A Texas state police captain tried to delay a law enforcement team entering the classrooms to end the Robb Elementary massacre and is now among those under investigation after an account from someone at the scene that he ordered his officers to stay out of the school in the initial response to the shooting, sources tell CNN.
CNN has learned from people close to the incidents who are not authorized to speak to the media that in the wake of the event, many current and former officers of the DPS have been referred for further investigation by the inspector general.
One lieutenant stated that he had driven from some 40 miles away to the scene at speeds of up to 130 mph after hearing someone yell out and being told not to enter the building.
A DPS sergeant added in his memo: “As this was clearly against established training, we both decided to enter the building where the shooter was located.”
During the time after the teen was killed by BORTAC, he set up a command post and cleared the crime scene. He told investigators how he used FaceTime to show his superiors the state of the school after the carnage, the sources familiar with the interviews said.
The names of the DPS officers under investigation have not been publicly released. Betancourt’s involvement has been confirmed to CNN by McCraw and other sources. Another of the seven, Crimson Elizondo, left DPS to work for the Uvalde school district this summer and was fired after CNN revealed what she said and did on the day of the massacre.
The interviews from the days immediately after the event offer the first official accounts from the officers who are currently being scrutinized by the inspector general.
Investigating the Betancourt Dispatch at Robb Elementary High School, a Los Alamos Elementary Shooting Location in Uvalde, Texas
And Victor Escalon, the regional DPS director for the South Texas Region that includes Uvalde, said Betancourt had texted him at 12:09 p.m.. That text read: “Initial info one person possibly a teacher shot in head, one officer shot, kid has AK 47, CNU [specialist negotiator team] has been activated, suspect is barricaded. Some troopers are medics. The sources said the team was on its way.
Betancourt told investigators he arrived at about 12:45 p.m. and he first assumed Nolasco was the on-scene commander as he was there outside the school.
Betancourt was asked if he talked with anyone about why entry was not being made to the classrooms and he said he did not, sources told CNN, remembering only that there was talk about negotiating with the shooter.
He said to investigators he issued the order to “stand by” based on information from Nolasco and thinking there was a better SWAT team still heading to the school, sources said.
According to the sources familiar with the investigation, at least two officers said that they received a distress call from Betancourt.
A sergeant said he had received a text about an “active shooter” incident from Betancourt at about 11:37 a.m., raising questions about Betancourt’s claim that he only became involved later.
McCraw and other DPS leaders have refused to discuss the internal investigations or release information until the investigations are complete at the request of local District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee. Her criminal investigation may take years and she has said she will charge anyone who has committed a crime at Robb Elementary, including law enforcement officers.
One kid called as it was about to start. An officer tells a new responders that the shooter had been in the room for an hour.
More than 20 calls, which include those between officers and the dispatch, show a chaotic response without clear communication according to reports. At least one time a person was told something that wasn’t true.
How the Texas Department of Public Safety handled a tragedy: Khloie Torres, 10, and the other kids killed in Robb Elementary School
Jamie said she was hurt to know that Khloie waited so long for help. There was no backup for the kids. She stated that no armor was in there on Wednesday. “They went through a lot, and they had absolutely no help from police.”
Despite hearing several gunshots, the officers did not know what was happening behind the closed doors, because they did not hear screams or cries.
Officers still did not breach the classroom after a responding officer’s wife, a fourth-grade teacher at the school, was shot, and called her husband saying she was “dying.”
He said on his body cam that there were victims at 12:20 pm. I don’t want any more of it. You know what I’m saying?”
The clear plea comes in a 12:10 p.m. call from Khloie Torres, then 10 years old and trapped at Robb Elementary School with a gunman who has slaughtered her friends and a teacher. Khloie, now 11, survived.
Nineteen children and two teachers were killed that day, though one adult and one child didn’t die immediately. Texas’ top cop, director of the Department of Public Safety Col. Steven McCraw, has acknowledged failures, most recently to bereaved families last week, but insisted his department as a whole did not fail the community.
CNN speaks with Khloie: A young man’s life under the gunman’s wrath in the school shooting
CNN obtained the calls from a source and is using excerpts with the approval of Khloie’s parents. CNN told families of people who died in the massacre that there would be a story about it.
Ruben says he knows how hard it is to give good information when under fire. “That day, the things that she did were absolutely incredible,” he said of his daughter. Of the adults who responded, he said: “None of them had courage that day.”
“I need help … please. Have you captured the person? the fourth grader asks at 12:12 p.m. And a few minutes later, “You want me to open the door now?”
“I’m telling everyone to be quiet but nobody is listening to me,” she tells the operator. I know what to do in those situations. My dad taught me when I was a little girl. It is necessary to send help.
At 12:12 p.m. the radio call goes out: “Uvalde to any units: Be advised we do have a child on the line … room 12 [sic]. Is anyone in the building right now?
There was plenty of confusion at the start of the massive response to the school shooting, which came after the gunman shot his grandmother in the head and crashed a truck near the school, both of which triggered emergency calls.
“We don’t know if he has anybody in the room with him, do we?” asks an officer in the hallway outside the classrooms. “He does,” comes the reply. “Eight or nine children.”
While some are talking about gas masks and shields and a command post, an emergency medic from Border Patrol arrives. He’s aware of the children.
Hearing the 911 Call from Khloie Torres during the Uvalde Elementary School Shooting by a Black Hole Shooter
Later, Khloie tells police how she was using her teacher’s phone, how she knew how to make the emergency call without having to unlock the phone as it was like her dad’s.
The girl is alive. She was talking on the phone when she was in the hospital, and was able to speak with one of the responders.
By then, armed responders were stacked up outside the connecting classrooms 111 and 112, where they waited and talked and checked equipment and looked for tools until a team finally entered the rooms and killed the gunman.
Lt. Mariano Pargas called his Uvalde Police Department dispatchers to get details after they relayed a call over the police radio from 10-year-old Khloie Torres that she was in a room “full of victims,” according to a recorded conversation obtained by CNN from sources close to the investigation into the failed law enforcement response to the massacre.
“All the officers who were there should hear this audio so they can understand what the hell the kids are going through, and these suckers are just outside.”
The parents of Miah want to hear the call from her, because she was severely injured when a bomb exploded in her head.
“If children are calling and saying that they’re hurt or in the classroom, that shows you that they are really cowards,” Cerrillo said of the responding officers.
Wednesday was the first time Miah’s parents had heard the call and they said it helped them to understand more of what Miah had told them about that day and what she had gone through.
“Hi, can you please send help?” Miah asks at 12:19 p.m., 46 minutes since the shooter was seen entering the room but still more than 30 minutes from when he was stopped.
Are they inside the building? she asks repeatedly about the law enforcement response. Her mother said Miah believed officers were still trying to find a way to get close to them, never imagining that they were stacked up on the other side of the door, just feet away.
Her family has tried to shield her from learning more about the failed response, but last month she found some of the body camera video online showing the distraction, delay and lack of communication.
Miah was able to tell CNN days later how she smeared blood on herself and played dead in the hope the gunman would leave her alone if he came back from the adjoining classroom. She testified before the US Congress to explain that she wanted to have security, in a video message sent to a House committee.
“She’s not Miah anymore,” her mother said simply, remembering how her middle child used to love playing pranks with her siblings and is now afraid of any loud noise.
The Baltimore Elementary School Teacher Whose Walked with Multiple Ststab wounds is a False Report of Stabbings
The Maryland law enforcement and school district are looking into why the elementary school teacher made a false claim that there were multiple stabbed students at the school before walking the 27 fifth- graders off campus.
According to the news release from the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office, there was a report of multiple stab wounds at Green Valley Elementary School. 40 minutes west of Baltimore, is the city of Monrovia.
The sheriff’s office found out that there had not been any stabs at the school and that 27 students and a teacher were missing. Authorities soon found all the students and the teacher at a local cafe, the sheriff’s office added. All of the students were accounted for and brought back to their families.
According to a statement from Frederick County Public Schools, the teacher believed that there was a problem with safety and acted to make sure the students didn’t get hurt.
The teacher made the decision to lead the students to the cafe due to her taking part in emergency management procedures.
“As they are walking through the woods, she has the children remove any brightly colored clothing or accessories and removes her own brightly colored shirt to avoid detection,” the sheriff’s office added.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/us/maryland-teacher-false-report-stabbings-investigation/index.html
The story of Khloie’s 911 call at 12:16 p.m. on May 24, 2001, in the Uvalde School District
We are thankful that this was a non-credible threat, but we know that the experience was upsetting for the students involved and our community at large. We regret that this happened,” the school district added.
The teacher was not arrested or charged after she was taken into custody. She was not handcuffed and was taken to a hospital for evaluation.
There will be additional mental health staff at the school and more information for the parents of the impacted students at the meeting that the school officials held, district officials said.
Pargas’s phone call proves for the first time that a senior officer was directly made aware of a 911 call from inside the classroom and was given details on the exact location of children who were alive and begging to be rescued.
The conversation, recorded routinely as part of police procedure, shows Pargas calling at 12:16 p.m., about six minutes after Khloie reached 911 and when she was still on the line with a dispatcher, and four minutes after the call information was relayed on the Uvalde police radio channel.
Pargas asked “So how many of them are still alive?”, and was told that eight to nine were still alive. She’s not too sure … She’s not too sure how many are actually DOA or possibly injured. We are trying.
Pargas left the school at 12:20 p.m. New angles of the hallway security cameras obtained by CNN confirm Pargas does not reenter the hallway near room 112 where officers are gathering and eventually breach the classroom door some 30 minutes later.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin placed Pargas on administrative leave in July because videos from body cameras raised questions about if he’d taken any action to assume command. “This administrative leave is to investigate whether Lt. Pargas was responsible for taking command on May 24th, what specific actions Lt. Pargas took to establish that command, and whether it was even feasible given all the agencies involved and other possible policy violations,” McLaughlin said in a statement at the time.
Pargas told CNN he couldn’t speak about the police department because his lawyers warned him not to.
I would like to defend myself. I do, he said on Monday. “There’s a lot of stuff that I can explain, that I would love to defend myself. And that’s the problem we’re having right now … the victims and everybody’s saying everything they want to say, but we can’t say nothing because we were told not to talk to, you know, we can’t say anything cause we’re still under that, not to talk to any, media or anything.”
He added: “It’s not that we’re afraid because there’s nothing to be afraid of. We did what we could, but the thing is that we’ve been told that we can’t (speak publicly).”
Lorentz invariant superintendent Marciano Pargas confessed to shooting a student in the hallway and shooting his teacher Eva Mireles
Just last week, Pargas was reelected as a Uvalde county commissioner after defeating three write-in candidates including Javier Cazares, who lost his daughter Jackie in the shooting.
Recounting what happened in an interview with a Texas Ranger and an FBI agent two days after the shooting, Pargas makes no mention of being aware at the time that children were with the shooter in the conjoining classrooms of 111 and 112, or of the 911 call, according to records of interviews obtained by CNN.
But he did know that teacher Eva Mireles had been shot in her classroom as he was told by her husband, a former member of Pargas’s police department then working for the school police, Pargas said. He decided to disarm the officer after watching him tensing and taking him out of the hallway.
Pargas said in his interview that the man was holding the gun tight. “And we were just afraid that he was gonna try to run in the classroom and try to do what I wanted to do if I could have done it.”
Later in the interview, he added: “The last thing we thought was that he had actually shot the kids. He shattered the lights and we thought he had shot up. We did not know what was behind those doors.
He told investigators he rushed to the vicinity of the school because someone had come into his office to say there was a man with a rifle.
“The minute I saw Pete Arredondo … I figured this is school property and we’re here to assist pretty much. That’s normally what we do – when something happens in the school, we pretty much assist the school because it’s their jurisdiction,” Pargas told the Ranger gathering information in mid-June.
Arredondo said that he did try to negotiate with the shooter as well as issue orders for people who were in the hallway with him, though he never considered himself the incident commander.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/14/us/uvalde-investigation-acting-police-chief-mariano-pargas/index.html
The Children’s Playroom: An OIC During the First 10 Years of the Robb Elementary School Rejuvenation (The Kiddos’ Story)
More officers from more local, state, and federal agencies arrived, and there was no clear direction of what was going on inside or outside the school building.
He was asked by another local officer if he wanted to be an OIC and Pargas said to direct him to Kindell, who is suspended and under investigation for failing to take action at Robb Elementary.
There were law enforcement officers in line at the end of a hallway to get to the classrooms.
He gives praise to the operation and thinks it saved more lives than just him.