When photographs rang out in Uvalde, Texas, they echoed amongst a small group of people that knew all too nicely the ache the survivors at Robb Elementary had been experiencing. They’d gone by way of it themselves, just some years earlier, at one other Texas college.
Many in Texas know the identical ache. From one of many nation’s first recorded mass shootings on the College of Texas at Austin in 1966 to Uvalde in 2022, Texas has a decades-long historical past of mass gun violence, a CBS Information investigation discovered. The state has had extra folks killed in mass shootings since 2019 than some other, in keeping with knowledge from the Violence Venture, which research mass shootings.
Legislation enforcement officers inform CBS Information it is easy for criminals to get their palms on a gun within the Lone Star State. Texas has one of many highest charges of gun possession and among the laxest gun legal guidelines within the nation. And a few survivors of gun violence there say they’re involved the state hasn’t accomplished sufficient to forestall future massacres.
“It was only a stab within the coronary heart”
The tragedy in Uvalde was laborious to think about for many. However Flo Rice did not need to think about. She lived by way of one other mass taking pictures at Santa Fe Excessive Faculty outdoors Houston practically 4 years earlier to the day.
It was “utter terror” because the taking pictures began simply throughout the corridor from her classroom, mentioned Rice, who labored at Santa Fe instead instructor.
“We acquired out within the corridor, and I heard probably the most deafening, horrific sound,” Rice mentioned. “I felt it reverberate by way of my physique. I had by no means skilled something prefer it.”
Ten lives had been misplaced that day: eight college students and two academics. 13 extra had been wounded, together with Rice.
“I sit up, and I understand that I can not transfer considered one of my legs,” Rice mentioned. “After which I look, and I noticed that I had bloody bullet holes in my legs.”
Rice recovered bodily, however the emotional wounds had been reopened the second she heard about one other college taking pictures in Texas, this time in Uvalde; 19 college students and two academics had been massacred and 17 others had been wounded.
“It was only a stab within the coronary heart,” Rice mentioned. “I simply actually felt ache in my coronary heart, as a result of it is what we tried so laborious to not let occur once more.”
A spokesperson for Santa Fe Impartial Faculty District declined to remark.
For years after the horror at Santa Fe Excessive Faculty, Flo and her husband Scot labored tirelessly with Texas lawmakers to repair the system. They pushed for brand spanking new legal guidelines designed to make colleges safer.
For Scot, the query was clear: “Do we actually need our youngsters secure? Or do we wish enterprise as standard?”
Shortly after Santa Fe, lawmakers within the state capitol handed a number of payments. They included Senate Invoice 11, meant to deal with college security.
SB 11 supplied hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to reinforce college security and required districts to strengthen emergency plans and increase psychological well being initiatives.
It required all college staff to have coaching similar to “psychological first assist,” and to create so-called “menace evaluation groups” that might assist spot probably violent college students and intervene to forestall the subsequent mass taking pictures. It additionally up to date necessities for districts’ emergency operations plans and gave the state extra capability to take motion if districts do not comply.
Scot mentioned the invoice does not go far sufficient.
“SB 11 has no enamel,” he mentioned. “There’s nothing in it that penalizes colleges that do not do [what the bill requires]. You wish to self-audit your self? Test the field.”
In his first interview for the reason that Uvalde taking pictures, Texas Schooling Company (TEA) Commissioner Mike Morath — the state’s high educator appointed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in 2016— admitted modifications to state regulation weren’t all the time adopted.
“It is one factor to have a plan on paper,” Morath mentioned. “It is one other factor fully to have a plan that’s practiced and executed. And I believe we have seen, even within the case of Uvalde, you have got plans that had been written that individuals weren’t persistently following.”
A spokesperson for Uvalde Consolidated Impartial Faculty District did not reply to a request for remark.
In an e mail, Abbott’s press secretary Renae Eze mentioned “the security and well-being of all Texans stays a high precedence for Governor Abbott.”
Eze mentioned Abbott carried out a variety of measures to deal with college safety and labored with the Texas legislature to supply over $100 million to enhance college security and strengthen psychological well being sources.
These funds embrace $50 million for “bullet-resistant shields,” greater than $10 million for psychological well being applications, and greater than $30 million for quite a lot of different safety measures and coaching.
No lively shooter plans
Uvalde had a safety plan on its web site, which features a menace evaluation crew. It additionally had an lively shooter plan in its emergency operations plan (EOP), in keeping with a report on the taking pictures by the Texas Home of Representatives.
However many Texas colleges did not have such a plan as lately as a 2020 audit by the Texas Faculty Security Heart (TXSSC). That report, which reviewed the EOPs of each district within the state, discovered most Texas districts did not have an enough lively shooter plan.
The report uncovered a deeper drawback in Texas colleges’ security plans, nonetheless; a whole lot of college districts that reported of their EOPs that they’d lively shooter insurance policies truly did not.
TXSSC Director Kathy Martinez-Prather instructed CBS Information these districts “weren’t being misleading,” however moderately did not have enough plans to fulfill state tips.
Martinez-Prather mentioned TXSSC will do one other evaluate of college security insurance policies starting on Sept. 12 which is able to embrace opinions of lively shooter plans. Martinez-Prather mentioned these opinions will not be made public however added that she hopes they are going to “see the needle transfer.”
In June, Abbott instructed all Texas college districts to endure a variety of enhancements, from reviewing EOPs to addressing safety deficiencies. Martinez-Prather mentioned TXSSC will certify these summer time opinions, however they may even be self-reported by the districts.
SB 11 has enforcement measures for districts that do not comply. TXSSC can inform college boards to carry public hearings if they are not complying, and TEA has the choice of appointing a conservator to make sure modifications are made.
Martinez-Prather mentioned just one district in Texas has been requested to carry public hearings, and that these hearings had been held, and the district had remedied the problems with their insurance policies. When requested, she declined to say which district it was.
Morath mentioned the oversight of faculties’ emergency plans has “largely been structured as a self-policing system thus far,” however stopped wanting saying there wasn’t sufficient oversight energy on behalf of the state.
In line with Morath, the query of state oversight is “a philosophical query about how a lot management ought to native principals, native college officers have on all the pieces that occurs in that faculty versus how a lot it is best to have managed on the state stage.”
Whereas it did not stop the Uvalde taking pictures, Morath mentioned SB 11 and the opposite measures handed after the Santa Fe taking pictures “completely made colleges extra secure all around the state of Texas.”
“As a dad, I keep in mind when that taking pictures in Santa Fe occurred,” Morath mentioned. “You cry and you’ve got anger. However in my duty as Commissioner of Schooling, I’ve to be reflective on what’s the coverage and follow panorama that allowed this to occur and what will we be taught from this.”
Flo and Scot Rice aren’t satisfied.
“You recognize, we are able to construct $40 million soccer stadiums,” Scot mentioned. “We won’t spend $4 million on security? You recognize? And when you do not survive Friday morning artwork class, you’ll be able to’t have Friday night time lights.”
Flo mentioned “colleges should be held accountable.”
“It should occur time and again,” she mentioned. “And once more, and once more. And folks can not comprehend it may well occur to them. You simply cannot — you can not conceive that as a result of it is too horrific, however it may well.”
CBS Information reached out to Texas State Senator Larry Taylor — the writer of SB 11 — however his workplace instructed us he was unavailable for remark.
Many years of mass shootings
Texas isn’t any stranger to mass shootings. One of many first main such incidents in U.S. historical past occurred there in 1966, when a person shot and killed 14 and injured 31 others from the clock tower on the College of Texas at Austin.
Knowledge supplied to CBS Information by the Violence Venture, which research mass shootings, begins with that incident greater than 50 years in the past. The info exhibits that, since 1966, Texas has had the second-most folks wounded in mass shootings. The one state with extra mass taking pictures accidents is Nevada, due to the 2017 Las Vegas taking pictures which injured greater than 800 folks.
Lately, some researchers started to broaden the definition of mass shootings. Knowledge from the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that aggregates knowledge on mass shootings — which it defines as an incident during which 4 or extra individuals are shot — exhibits extra folks have died in mass shootings in Texas in since 2019 than in some other state.
Mark Bryant, govt director of the Gun Violence Archive, instructed CBS Information in an e mail he thinks extra permissive gun legal guidelines result in extra gun deaths.
“I imagine that what we’re seeing is proof that the NRA mantra of ‘extra weapons, much less crime’ couldn’t be extra clearly fallacious,” Bryant mentioned.
James Densley, who co-founded The Violence Venture, added that, when adjusted for inhabitants, Texas ranks fifteenth for mass shootings within the U.S., in keeping with The Violence Venture’s knowledge.
“He pulled out the gun from beneath his coat”
January 15, 2022 was nearly yet one more mass taking pictures in Texas. A gunman terrorized 4 folks at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, holding them hostage for 11 hours.
Police say Malik Akram arrived in Texas weeks earlier than the incident. He stayed in an area homeless shelter, then purchased a gun from a person he met on the road.
Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker later discovered himself staring down the barrel of that very same gun. It started with only a sound.
“I heard the clicking.” Cytron-Walker instructed CBS Dallas Fort-Value after the incident. “Of what I assumed might have been a gun, and I hoped it was not. That is when he pulled out the gun from beneath his coat.”
After 11 terrifying hours during which Akram repeatedly threatened to kill Cytron-Walker and others, claimed to have planted bombs and repeated antisemitic tropes, the FBI pressured their manner in and killed Akram.
The person who admitted promoting Akram the gun, Henry Williams, pleaded responsible to being a felon in possession of a gun. Akram, a British nationwide who was not a U.S. citizen, wasn’t allowed to have a gun in Texas. However beneath Texas regulation, gross sales much like that one are completely authorized — a personal transaction with no background examine required.
Williams’ legal professional did not reply to a request for remark.
Jeffrey Cohen, one of many hostages at Congregation Beth Israel, mentioned Texas regulation makes these sorts of gross sales too simple.
“As quickly as you say you’ll be able to have gross sales between people, there isn’t any technique to examine,” he mentioned. “There is not any technique to examine whether or not a twice-convicted felon is promoting a gun to somebody from a overseas nation.”
Cohen, who mentioned he himself holds a hid carry allow, instructed CBS Information he thinks folks have the appropriate to hold a gun.
“I imagine that if it makes you’re feeling safer, you have got the appropriate to personal a gun,” he mentioned. “I maintain a hid carry allow … however as quickly as you say all people’s allowed to hold, the dangerous guys can carry too.”
Al Jones, the chief of police for the Arlington Police Division, a metropolis of practically 400,000 lower than 20 miles from Colleyville, mentioned gun legal guidelines in Texas make incidents just like the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue standoff extra doubtless.
“Texas is a type of states the place it is easy to get weapons,” he mentioned.
Jones mentioned latest legal guidelines handed in Texas decrease the bar even additional. The state’s Firearms Carry Act of 2021 permits most Texans to hold a handgun in public with out having to acquire a license.
Jones mentioned that makes it more durable for regulation enforcement to find out who ought to be permitted to hold a gun in public.
“You do not have to have any coaching,” Jones mentioned. “You do not have to have something. You possibly can simply … [be] 21 years outdated and you’ll go get a gun.”
Gun management advocates say these lenient Texas gun legal guidelines contribute to a pipeline funneling weapons to different states with stricter rules.
Knowledge from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) analyzed by CBS Information exhibits hundreds of weapons initially bought in Texas turned up in different states. Between 2010 and 2020, greater than 36,000 such weapons had been recovered by police outdoors Texas, CBS Information’ evaluation confirmed. That is greater than some other state besides Florida and Georgia.
An ATF spokesperson did not reply to CBS Information’ request for remark.
One of many folks alleged to be lately answerable for the move of weapons from Texas to different states is Demontre Hackworth, a 31-year-old who authorities say purchased greater than 90 weapons in North Texas since 2019.
Authorities say Hackworth purchased weapons in Texas, the place his hid carry allow meant he did not need to undergo background checks each time he purchased a firearm. However they had been discovered by police as far-off as Maryland and even Canada, in keeping with an indictment by federal prosecutors unsealed in June.
Texas can also be affected by this fixed move of weapons. In 2020 alone, about 27,000 firearms bought in Texas later turned up at crime scenes within the state, in keeping with ATF knowledge.
9 of the weapons Hackworth allegedly bought had been later linked to crimes in Texas, together with within the homicide of a 21-year-old transgender lady, Kiér Laprí Kartier, who was fatally shot in Arlington, Texas in September 2021.
Hackworth pleaded not responsible to 4 federal expenses – one depend of dealing in firearms with no license and three counts of constructing a false assertion through the buy of a firearm – filed in opposition to him. His legal professional declined to remark, and the case remains to be pending.
Eddie Garcia, chief of the Dallas Police Division, mentioned it is “not stunning” so many weapons bought in Texas find yourself within the palms of criminals.
“Our neighborhood is being damage by this,” Garcia mentioned. “Our victims are being damage by this. You recognize, our women and men which are on the market each day to take that prison ingredient off the road, they’re being affected by this.”
