The Uvalde Report Touches on Migrant Chases

The Texas House committee charged with getting to the bottom of the Uvalde shooting hasn’t dug up enough information or solutions for the future. Ultimately, the reason for the shooting will always be about easy gun access and lax background check policies as these officials continue to pass the blame to everyone but themselves.

I will give the Texas Tribune a lot of credit for their work in Uvalde, including trying to get to the bottom of the report with their takeaways. Among the takeaways included law enforcement and community being desensitized to emergency situations because of the frequent Border Patrol and Greg Abbott-enlisted local law enforcement chases of migrants and smugglers in individual vehicles that caused “bailouts.”

One reason for a culture of complacency around alerts is that they happened so often. Uvalde is located about an hour from the U.S.-Mexico border and police described an increase in “bailouts” near the school, in which officers chase a vehicle containing suspected undocumented migrants who then purposely crash and scatter to avoid apprehension.

Since late February, there were 47 “secure” or “lockdown” events at Uvalde schools, according to the report. Around 90% of them were attributed to bailouts, the committee said.

“Uvalde CISD parents became so concerned about the number of bailouts occurring near the elementary-school campuses that they offered to hire off-duty police to supplement the Uvalde CISD police presence,” the report said.

The vilification of migrants instilled so much fear of them in the community that they ended up not thinking about what else could happen to their children. They were more concerned with people escaping violence and poverty than with some kid with, as the report found, actual mental health issues and online hints of violence that went ignored. The systemic problems include Greg Abbott and his border boondoggle, but they won’t go so far as to blame him.

Just a reminder, early on, it was this blog who mentioned the online rumor mill in Uvalde which included stories of bad migrants attacking the schools from people made ignorant by Greg Abbott and the Keystone Cops which did nothing to save the Uvalde children. It’s an issue, and, unfortunately, it will still go ignored if people (and Democrats) allow it. It will still be a good photo op for area cops who want their trophies to impress Greg Abbott.

Kuff has more on the rest of the report.