‘We have a serious problem.’ Tarrant leaders address gun safety after Uvalde shooting
Law enforcement and school officials joined Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives in Fort Worth on Thursday for a town hall responding to the shooting at an Uvalde elementary school.
Rep. Chris Turner, a Grand Prairie Democrat, and Fort Worth Democrats, Rep. Nicole Collier and Rep. Ramon Romero, Jr. hosted the town hall at Tarrant County College’s South Campus. The event is one in a series of town halls being held by House Democrats in the wake of the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed.
The representatives, Fort Worth Superintendent Kent Scribner, Arlington Superintendent Marcelo Cavazos, Fort Worth Assistant Police Chief Robert Alldredge and Arlington Police Chief Alexander Jones each took turns giving remarks before fielding questions from the audience.
“We have a serious problem with gun violence every single day,” Turner said. “We have a serious problem with mass shootings.”
Scribner said protecting students is the top priority and walked through the steps the district has taken and the resources invested to keep schools safe. Alldredge walked through the ways the district and department work together to make schools safe.
“If in fact this is a priority of the state, then we would expect that the investment would be made,” Scribner said. “In societies like ours, people pay for their priorities. If it’s a priority, we would expect our leaders to put their money where their mouth is.”
In the days since the shooting in Uvalde, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has largely focused on school safety and mental health.
Alldredge said the department has 68 school resource officers who are in high school and middle schools. Responding to an audience member’s question, he said the district does not currently have officers in elementary schools, but that there are ongoing conversations about the issue.
“We’re going to be working with our city leaders, with the school districts to see what we can do to close that gap,” he said.
Cavazos described the Arlington school district’s Multidisciplinary Threat Assessment Team, which is tasked with identifying, assessing and intervening to help students who may be a public safety risk. He said the program needs to be duplicated in the community.
“We must really ask ourselves the question of why are these behaviors growing,” he said. “Why are these tendencies growing? What’s happening in our communities, in our state, our nation that is generating this type of reaction.”
Lawmakers called for bipartisan support to pass gun safety legislation.
“Not any one of us that are sitting here have said take away your guns,” Collier said. “We all have a second amendment right, but we have to have common sense legislation.”
Romero raised the idea of policies such as universal background checks, “red flag” laws, restricting large capacity magazines and limiting assault style rifles from being carried openly.
“Those are some of the ideas that have already been put forward,” he said. “And again, I think that the vast majority of these are low hanging fruit.”
Jones called on community members to “step up” and partner with law enforcement by being responsible gun owners.
“This is a community issue and we have to look at it as a community issue,” he said later in the conversation.
As some have called for a special session to respond to the shooting, Abbott has called for committees to address school safety, mental health, social media, police training and firearm safety. An investigative committee formed by House Speaker Dade Phelan held its first meeting Thursday to begin its probe into the circumstances surrounding the shooting.
Texas lawmakers’ next legislative session is scheduled to begin Jan. 10.
Turner said he, Romero and Collier are prepared to work on legislation responding to mass shootings whenever they get back to Austin, whether it’s “next January or next week.”
This story was originally published June 9, 2022 at 10:25 PM.
