DOJ Report On Response To Uvalde Shooting Scathing

The U.S. Justice Department issued a scathing report late last week on the May 4, 2022, mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference in Uvalde that officials’ response that day and afterward “was a failure that should not have happened.”

The Justice Department’s nearly 500-page report noted that it took 77 minutes before the shooter was killed, and that officials made the mistake of attempting to negotiate with the killer in the classroom where victims were trapped.

“This was the most significant failure,” Garland said. “That failure meant that law enforcement officials prioritized a protracted evacuation of students and teachers in other classrooms, instead of immediately rescuing the victims trapped with the active shooter.”

The Uvalde victims’ families were first provided copies of the report ahead of its official release.

Medical Board Petitioned To Issue Abortion Guidelines 

Two Austin attorneys are asking the Texas Medical Board to issue guidelines on abortion laws to clarify the medical exceptions allowed under the state’s near total ban, the Statesman reported. Steve andAmy Bresnen, who are married, asked the board to devise rules to “ensure critical care to pregnant females and implement medical emergency exceptions to laws that otherwise punish those who perform abortions.”

The medical board has 60 days to either initiate a rule making process or deny the request.

The Texas Supreme Court made a similar request in December after rejecting the bid of a Dallas mother with a fatal fetal diagnosis to have an abortion in Texas. Kate Cox ultimately traveled to New Mexico to have the pregnancy terminated.

5th Circuit Throws Out Recently Passed Book Ban 

Citing free speech grounds, the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has halted a Texas law that bans school library books deemed “sexually explicit,” The Dallas Morning News reported. Two Texas bookstores and national trade groups representing booksellers, authors and publishers had filed the suit to challenge a law passed in the last legislative session.

The law was to take effect Jan. 1, but a lower court blocked its implementation. It was unclear whether the state would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Texas leads the nation in book bans, according to The News. Approximately 800 books were removed from Texas school libraries from July 2021 to June 2022. The ruling let stand a portion of the new law that requires the State Board of Education to approve standards for Texas school libraries to follow, which it has done. However, without the ratings required by the new law, the statute will not operate as originally intended.