AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas House investigation of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary opened on Thursday morning, with Chair Dustin Burrows saying most of the committee’s work would be done in closed session.

What You Need To Know

  • The Texas House has opened their investigation into the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde

  • Speaker Dade Phelan appointed a three-member committee to review the incident

  • Most of the work will be done in closed session, and the committee has no timetable to finish their report

 

Speaker Dade Phelan, unhappy with conflicting information coming out of the Uvalde investigation, appointed the three-member committee on June 3. The proclamation mentions the committee can interview any department, agency or political subdivision, but Burrows focused his comments on the interview of the multiple law enforcement agencies on hand at the shooting on May 24.

“We understand there is a true tremendous public interest in the circumstances surrounding the Uvalde shooting and a growing urgency for answers. That is why this committee was formed,” Burrows said. “I want to assure those watching, the answers and solutions will come, and we will work as quickly as possible to get that point. But because of the quasi-jurisdictional nature, this committee will be conducting its work like other investigative committees and examining witnesses in executive session.”

Burrows is a Republican with a civil law practice in his hometown of Lubbock. Rep. Joe Moody is a Democrat from El Paso and a former prosecutor in the El Paso district attorney’s office. Moody said one message resonated at a Democratic town hall on gun violence in El Paso on June 6.

“We can’t let mass shootings, especially in our schools, be normalized,” Moody said. “I was in high school when Columbine happened, and it was shocking because it was unheard of at the time. So I know it didn’t used to be this way, and it doesn’t have to be this way now.”

This is not a new normal, Moody said. “It’s an epidemic.”

The committee’s final member, Eva Guzman, left the Texas Supreme Court to run for attorney general. Prior to that, Guzman was a Family District Courts judge in Houston and a former member of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals. No parent should have to experience something like Uvalde, Guzman said.

“The people of Texas deserve answers. The families deserve answers,” Guzman said. “Speaker Phelan tasked us with finding the facts and getting the people of Texas the answers they deserve, and the legislature the information it needs to make sure that this never happens again.”

Hal Harrell, the superintendent of Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, held a news conference at the same time as the House hearing. District Spokeswoman Anne Marie Espinoza told reporters the district would make no comment on the ongoing investigation and continued to cooperate with law enforcement. Harrell also declined to comment on the employment status of the school district’s police chief Pete Arredondo, calling it a personnel matter.

The House committee does not have a timeline for when it expects to finish its report. Law enforcement involved on the ground the day of the Uvalde shooting included the UCISD Police Department, the Uvalde Police Department, the local Border and Customs Patrol Office and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

“We will balance the interests of being timely — because there is some need for expediency on this — with also being thorough,” Burrows said. “We will try our best to keep the members of the public and the press apprised as we go through this.”