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Topics: US News
Rachel Lang
Topics: US News
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin has revealed that he doesn't trust Texan leaders who are investigating law enforcement's response to the deadly shooting at Robb Elementary.
Nineteen children from the same fourth-grade class all died in the attack in Uvalde, Texas, along with two teachers.
The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Steven McCraw has since labelled the response to the May shooting as an 'abject failure'.
It was found that police officers waited 77 minutes before confronting the gunman on May 24.
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Now, 42 days after the brutal massacre that rocked the world, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin has launched a blistering accusation at those investigating the law enforcement bungle.
"I'm not confident, 100 per cent, in the DPS because I think it's a cover-up," he told CNN.
He then accused McCraw as 'covering up' for those involved.
"Every agency in that hallway is gonna have to share the blame," McLaughlin said, referring to the multiple law enforcement agencies that gathered inside and outside the school before the shooter was eventually challenged by police and killed.
McLaughlin added: "At this point, I don't know what to believe and what not to believe."
The Uvalde Mayor also revealed that he had not had a briefing 'from anybody' since the day after the deadly school attack, when Texas Governor Greg Abbott travelled to his town to be briefed on what happened at Robb Elementary.
McLaughlin also said that key facts in the timeline of the gunman's deadly assault on the school had changed significantly since the hours following the shooting.
"I [have] lost confidence because the narrative changed from DPS so many times and when we asked questions, we weren't getting answers," McLaughlin said, as per CNN.
Uvalde's Mayor then called on the Texas Governor to return to his town to speak to grieving relatives of the 19 children and two teachers who were killed.
"These families want to talk to the governor and he needs to come and see them," McLaughlin said.
The accusation from McLaughlin comes nearly two weeks after DPS Director Steve McCraw told Texan senators that Police Chief Pete Arredondo put the lives of law enforcement officers 'before the lives of children', the New York Post reports.
"Mistakes were made and it should have never happened that way and we can’t allow that to ever happen … this set our profession back a decade," McCraw told lawmakers.
Arredondo has been put on administrative leave.