Texas school principal suspended after Uvalde shooting
By Brendan O’Brien
(Reuters) – The principal of the Texas elementary faculty the place a gunman went on a rampage in Might has been suspended with pay, her lawyer stated on Tuesday, two weeks after a damning report about lax safety that enabled the shooter to hold out the assault.
Mandy Gutierrez, principal of Robb Elementary Faculty, was positioned on administrative depart by Hal Harrell, the Uvalde faculty district superintendent, on Monday, her lawyer Ricardo Cedillo informed Reuters.
He provided no particular motive for the suspension which comes two months after the bloodbath, which killed 19 schoolchildren and two academics.
The capturing opened up a brand new wave of debate over the simple entry to weapons loved by Texans and plenty of different Individuals.
“Ms. Gutierrez has no additional remark presently,” he stated.
The suspension follows the discharge of a report on an investigation by a Texas legislative committee into the Might 24 capturing. It discovered Gutierrez, who was in her first yr as principal of the college, knew about safety points across the faculty.
“Robb Elementary had a tradition of noncompliance with security insurance policies requiring doorways to be saved locked, which turned out to be deadly,” the report stated, saying that the gunman simply entered the college by an unlocked door.
The report, which marked essentially the most exhaustive try to date to find out why it took greater than an hour for police to confront and kill the 18-year-old gunman, stated “systemic failures” and poor management had contributed to the loss of life toll.
The report stated Gutierrez and different workers knew that the lock on the door of Room 111 – the place the shootings passed off – was not working correctly, however didn’t place a piece order to get it mounted. That damaged lock enabled the gunman to simply enter the classroom, it stated.
“If the door to Room 111 had been locked, the attacker probably would have been slowed for a while,” the report stated.
Along with Gutierrez, the college district has suspended its police chief, Pete Arredondo, who has been criticized for his dealing with of the capturing.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago, Enhancing by Angus MacSwan)
