Texas senator files bills to improve mass shooting training after Uvalde massacre

Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, on Tuesday unveiled new legislation he filed to improve mass shooting training for law enforcement agencies and increase security on school campuses, making good on promises to beef up student safety protections after the deadliest school shooting in state history hit Uvalde in May.

In the months since the shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 fourth graders and two teachers dead, Gutierrez has been emphatic in his criticism of the deeply flawed law enforcement response to the massacre, in which officers waited 77 minutes to confront and kill the shooter.

"Everybody in Texas needs to examine the complete and utter failure that happened on this day,” Gutierrez said. “It must not ever happen again.”

Families of shooting victims from Robb Elementary and Santa Fe High School, where a teenage gunman in 2018 fatally shot 10 people, joined Gutierrez on Tuesday to discuss the new bills. At the news conference, Gutierrez announced he wants lawmakers to appropriate $2 billion to expand mental health care access and $2 billion for school hardening in the next budget cycle.

Gutierrez on Tuesday also filed a resolution to replace the Confederate Soldiers Monument on the Capitol's grounds with a memorial honoring mass shooting victims and survivors.

Gutierrez has pledged to spend the 88th legislative session advocating for Uvalde victims' families and pushing for legislation that increases gun safety, improves school security and expands mental health care access.

Here are the bills Gutierrez filed Tuesday:

SB 738: Improvements to law enforcement protocol

Senate Bill 738 would require all public safety agencies to have emergency radio infrastructure that allows communication among different agencies. On May 24, law enforcement officers that responded to Robb Elementary reported that their radios failed to function properly in the school’s buildings, which officials say impeded communication and coordination efforts among officers and the responding agencies.

“Not one damn radio worked inside that building,” Gutierrez said. “Not one radio – cops were out there playing telephone for 77 minutes trying to figure out what was going on inside and outside and who was talking on one side of the hallway and who was talking on the other. It was a complete and utter failure.”

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SB 738 also aims to improve law enforcement mass shooting trainings by requiring that they include:

• How to protect students during a mass shooting at a school.

• Emergency medical response training specifically for treating firearm injuries.

• Tactics to stop a shooter from entering a classroom or school grounds.

• How to establish a chain of command during a mass shooting.

Law enforcement officials have in part blamed the 77-minute delay in ending the Uvalde mass shooting on a lack of clear leadership, or a chain of command, at the scene.

SB 737: Creating the Texas School Patrol

SB 737 would establish the Texas School Patrol, a law enforcement unit that would have at least one officer present at each public school and higher education campus in Texas.

According to the bill, Texas School Patrol officers would be required to have all the equipment, including bullet resistant shields, and training necessary to respond to mass shootings. That training must include how to work with local law enforcement agencies to coordinate an emergency response.

Gutierrez said Tuesday the unit would have 10,000 people, cost about $750 million, and be part of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

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Appropriations request: $4 billion for mental health care and school hardening

Gutierrez said he's asking state budget writers to carve out $2 billion to expand mental health care access, especially in rural areas.

“Yes (the Robb Elementary mass shooting) is a story about terror," Gutierrez said. "It's also a story about rural neglect, neglect in Texas. We deserve better."

He is also seeking $2 billion for school hardening measures.

“Each parent should be able to send their kids to school knowing that they're going to be able to pick them up at the end of the day,” he said.

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SCR 15: Memorial honoring mass shooting victims and survivors

With Senate Concurrent Resolution 15, Gutierrez proposes to move the Confederate Soldiers Monument from the Capitol grounds to the Texas State Cemetery, and replace it with a memorial honoring victims and survivors of mass shootings.

“We should honor the kids that we failed so that we never forget them,” Gutierrez said.

“When you go out and you leave this (Capitol) building and you see that (Confederate) memorial outside, it says, ‘We will never forget this date,’ the date Texas seceded from the Union," he said. "I hope that people never forget May 24, and the days of the incidents of Santa Fe and every other mass shooting in this state. We should never forget because we should never allow this to happen again to another child in this state.”

Additional Uvalde legislation

Gutierrez’s news conference on Tuesday was the second of its kind the senator has held this legislative session. He previously vowed to hold one every week during the session to announce and push for legislation on behalf of the Uvalde victims' families.

“This has become personal to me. Because these people have become my friends," an emotional Gutierrez said. "These people deserve more than what they got. Their little babies deserve more than what they got. And, by God, we need to do something.”

During his first such news conference on Jan. 24, Gutierrez announced he had filed several bills:

• SB 574 would create a school violence victims’ compensation fund for any child or adult who is killed or injured by gun violence on a public school campus.

• SB 575 would eliminate qualified immunity protections for police officers, and allow "individuals harmed by the officers’ actions, or failure to act, to hold those officers liable for damages and/or the violation of their rights.”

• SCR 12 would allow the Uvalde victims’ families to sue the state and its ancillary agencies for negligence during the Robb Elementary mass shooting response.

• SCR 11 would demand that Congress repeal the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which protects gun manufacturers from lawsuits when crimes are committed with their products.

Gutierrez has filed bills this session to create extreme risk protective orders, raise the minimum age to purchase military-style semi-automatic rifles, and create a separate Uvalde victims’ compensation fund.

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Gun restrictions: Uvalde, Santa Fe families want more

Many Uvalde victims' families have spent the past eight months demanding that lawmakers address gun violence, and they've made multiple trips to Austin and Washington to push for more gun restrictions, including raising the age to purchase military-style semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. The Uvalde shooter purchased his weapons legally just days after his 18th birthday.

Gutierrez said the families of Uvalde victims Lexi Rubio, Tess Mata and Xavier Lopez, as well as the mother of a Santa Fe High shooting victim, on Tuesday spoke to the Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus and three other House leaders to push for gun control measures. Gutierrez said that next week they are scheduled to speak to more leaders in the House and Senate, including Republicans.

“We knew in Santa Fe that it wouldn't be if there was going to be a mass shooting again in the state of Texas, that it was going to be when,” said Rhonda Hart, whose daughter Kimberly was killed in the Santa Fe High shooting. “We're here all of us, Santa Fe and Uvalde, we stand together hopefully so that no other family in this godforsaken state has to do this.”

Resistance in the GOP-dominated Legislature

The gun control measures the Uvalde and Santa Fe families want to see passed face steep hurdles in the Republican-dominated Legislature, which has loosened gun restrictions in recent sessions.

House Speaker Dade Phelan has expressed a willingness to allow a debate on the House floor about raising the minimum age to purchase military-style semi-automatic rifles, but he's been clear that he doesn’t believe the proposal has the needed votes to pass. The measure has an even higher threshold to pass in the Senate, where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has not proven to be open to increased gun control restrictions.

Gov. Greg Abbott, Phelan and Patrick have all said that school security and safety are among their priorities this legislative session.

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On Tuesday, Gutierrez was cautious when asked about his communication with Patrick on the issue.

“The lieutenant governor I find to be a very pragmatic person, I think he’ll do what's right, and I think he’ll find solutions where we can meet in the middle," he said. "This is still a building where we can compromise on things."

In the coming weeks, Gutierrez says, he will be unveiling bills that address gun safety and gun access, though in the conversation over how to reduce gun violence, Republicans often shift the focus from gun access to mental health resources and school hardening.

“I'm supportive of any school hardening measure, but let's be very, very clear here: that isn't the common denominator. … The common denominator is access to militarized weapons in the hands of kids,” Gutierrez said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas bills aim to improve police mass shooting training after Uvalde