Robb Elementary School will be demolished, Uvalde mayor says

Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed in a mass shooting, will be demolished, Mayor Don McLaughlin announced on Tuesday night.

In a city council meeting, the mayor said that he spoke with Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District superintendent Hal Harrell and said it was his “understanding” that the building will be pulled down. “You can never ask a child to go back or teacher to go back in that school ever,” McLaughlin said, without providing a timeline for the demolition.

Harrell said that Robb Elementary would be turned into “something other than a school site,” while the school will be transferred to a new address, according to Business Insider.

President Joe Biden previously expressed support for the school’s destruction.

Robb Elementary will not be the first school to be razed after a major tragedy. Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 students and six staff members were fatally shot by a 20-year-old gunman in 2012, was also demolished and rebuilt.

During Tuesday’s council meeting, McLaughlin expressed frustration over difficulties in getting answers from those investigating the deadly shooting at Robb Elementary, as well as the police response, which has been heavily criticized.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde, said President Biden, who visited the city on May 29, told him that “we’re going to look to raze that school and build a new one,” KSAT 12, an ABC affiliate in San Antonio, Texas, reported.

Furthermore, on Wednesday, Gutierrez sued the Texas Department of Public Safety, seeking official law enforcement records related to the Robb Elementary shooting, according to The Austin American-Statesman, which is now part of USA today.

After previously seeking ballistics reports and documents, Gutierrez argued in his lawsuit that the agency did not provide the documents, or seek an attorney general’s opinion about withholding them, within 10 business days as required under state law. As a result, the lawsuit argues, the agency is required to provide the documents.

“The State of Texas failed these families, and those families deserve to know the complete, unalterable truth about what happened that day,” the lawsuit said.