Surveillance video from the Uvalde school shooting could be released to the public as early as Sunday, per a Texas state legislator.
Officials plan to give community members an opportunity to see the footage if they want and discuss the Texas House special committee on the Robb Elementary School shooting’s preliminary report during a meeting on Sunday, Republican state Rep. Dustin Burrows announced. The footage will be released to the public “very soon thereafter.”
UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE TO BE RELEASED
“The Committee will convene at 2 PM on Sunday in Uvalde. We will meet with members of the community first, and provide them an opportunity to see the hallway video and discuss our preliminary report. Very soon thereafter, we will release both to the public,” tweeted Burrows, chairman of the committee.
“We feel strongly that members of the Uvalde community should have the opportunity to see the video and hear from us before they are made public,” he added.
Burrows indicated Monday that the mayor had reached a deal with the Texas Department of Public Safety to divulge the footage to the public, ABC reported. However, the department later contradicted that, prompting Burrows to clarify that lawmakers are still pursuing the release of the footage but did not reach an agreement.
“It is my intention to show the hallway video to the people of Uvalde, regardless of any agreement. I will not release it to the public until the people of Uvalde have seen it for themselves,” Burrows tweeted.
Any released footage will contain “no graphic images or depictions of violence,” Burrows said.
Questions still linger about what transpired during the 77 minutes from when the gunman entered the school to when law enforcement officers killed him. Nineteen schoolchildren and two adults were gunned down during the massacre, which took place in May. Burrows has maintained that the footage will add more context to accounts of how law enforcement responded to the shooting.
A deluge of politicians such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, and Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin advocated that the footage be released to the public. McLaughlin later elaborated that he only wanted footage showcasing law enforcement’s response to be released, not footage of the children being shot, ABC reported.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to a representative for Burrows for further elaboration.
Local law enforcement has been subject to a firestorm over the response to the shooter entering the school. A timeline of events from authorities indicates officers waited nearly an hour to enter a classroom where the shooter was barricaded inside. Additionally, changing details from authorities about the occurrence, such as whether the gunman donned body armor, have led to cries for greater transparency.
