Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin filed a lawsuit against the county district attorney, urging her to resign. The Texas Republican is accusing the district attorney of blocking an investigation into the Robb Elementary School shooting that claimed 21 lives in 2022.
“It’s been fifteen months since this tragedy, and I feel the families and our community deserve answers,” McLaughlin argued Tuesday in a lawsuit filed against District Attorney Christina Mitchell. McLaughlin further alleged that Mitchell “has been involved in a cover-up regarding the City’s investigation into the Robb School tragedy,” CNN reported.
McLaughlin’s allegations arose after the city hired independent investigator Jesse Prado in July 2022 to investigate the delayed response to the school shooting by officials with the Uvalde Police Department, KSAT News reported.
In the shooting that took place in May 2022, armed police officers waited more than one hour before breaching classrooms where 18-year-old shooter Salvador Ramos had shot students and teachers — a delay slammed by top Texas law enforcement official Steve McCraw as an “abject failure.” (RELATED: Heavily Armed Uvalde Police Now Arguing AR-15 Prevented Them From Intervening)
After records were not released to Prado to carry out the investigation, McLaughlin filed an initial lawsuit against Mitchell in December 2022. That lawsuit was dismissed after Mitchell promised “to cooperate with the City and Mr. Prado in providing the specific information he advised the D.A. he needed,” McLaughlin explained, according to KSAT.
“She failed, once again, to keep her word,” the mayor continued.
Mitchell’s inaction, McLaughlin argued, prompted this second lawsuit. “Christina Mitchell should resign immediately. Since day one, we have called for transparency from every agency that was there that day,” McLaughlin argued, according to the outlet.
Brett Cross, whose son was killed in the shooting, agreed, telling KENS 5 News that families can’t move on without some sort of closure.
“It has just been failure after failure. We still see those same officers who sat outside that school wherever we go. We see them at the grocery store, we see them at the convenience store. The same officers who stood by and did nothing,” Cross stated. “So, for this district attorney to hold onto all of this [evidence] knowing full well what we have been asking and begging for for well over a year, it’s cruel. Everybody just wants us to move on and forget about it, and that’s not going to happen.”
Mitchell told CNN in June 2022 that she had no plans to release videos or records relating to the shooting while the investigation was ongoing.
“Any release of records to that incident at this time would interfere with said ongoing investigation and would impede a thorough and complete investigation,” Mitchell stated at the time.