New Questions Over Actions of State Police in Uvalde School Shooting Incident
The University District is grappling with its growing number of shootings.
The Uvalde Independent School District is grappling with its growing number of shootings.
State troopers say the shootings are the result of a chaotic, unstable atmosphere that has become increasingly difficult to control.
The incident involving a high school student last month in the Uvalde school district is under investigation by police.
State Troopers are now trying to determine the role that a group of children at the school, nicknamed the Uvalde Vandals, played in the shooting of a man who was found killed, said Texas State Trooper Darren Miskovsky, an accident investigator with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The Uvalde case and another reported last week at a church in Palestine have led to questions about what other factors might be involved in the shootings, and whether a high school has become a place where children, not adults, are committing the shootings.
The Texas Department of Public Safety has identified seven school districts and one church as having at least six shootings in the last three years, an increase of three in the past three years.
Schools with 10 or more shootings are those most affected by the violence, officials said.
The incidents in Texas have been a hot topic in school shootings cases to date, including the 2008 massacre in Arizona and the 2006 shooting in Kentucky.
But the Uvalde incidents were the first in which children at the school were suspected of being the shooters.
In a letter to state legislators Friday, DPS Commissioner Mark Macias said the Texas board of education would consider whether to change the definition of school zones to include the Uvalde school district.
DPS officials declined to say what, if anything, they have learned from the investigation since the state police agency said last week, “that there is no credible evidence or information to suggest that our troopers or law enforcement were involved in any way in this incident.”
That statement followed reports that a group of about