Blowing Sunshine 🌞

as we learn more details about more ways police misled the public about Uvalde, remember: the vast majority of claims about individual crimes/police interactions that appear in media are based completely on the unconfirmed and uninterrogated word of unnamed police spokespeople https://t.co/3uD8W024UR

— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) June 21, 2022

So, here’s the thing: they don’t have to be unnamed; they can simply be uninterrogated:

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin on Tuesday accused state authorities of selectively releasing information about last month’s school shooting to scapegoat local law enforcement. https://t.co/m5vMHhuTqA

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) June 22, 2022

“McCraw has continued to, whether you want to call it, lie, leak … mislead or misstate information in order to distance his own troopers and rangers from the response,” McLaughlin said Tuesday evening. 

McLaughlin said none of the entities with information about the investigation into the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School — DPS, the Texas Legislature, the Uvalde County District Attorney’s office and the FBI — have briefed Uvalde city officials about their findings. 

McLaughlin said he had been asked to refrain from sharing details about the investigation while it was ongoing but said Tuesday he would now start releasing that information as it became available to city officials. 

“The gloves are off. If we know it, we will share it,” he said.

Which is not to say everything McLaughlin says now is true and can be trusted. But this story:

🚨Read this article. And then read it again.

Then DEMAND ANSWERS for all 21 victims killed and 17 injured survivors. https://t.co/LTJ5qjnCq6

— Katie S. Phang (@KatiePhang) June 22, 2022

...is from McCray’s testimony, not from the horse’s mouth. There have been so many conflicting stories from “law enforcement sources” that at this point I’d check with NWS before accepting any such source that told me the sun was shining in Uvalde that day. 🌞 

Everybody connected with this disaster is doing CYA. Proceed accordingly, and keep the central question ever before you: why the hell was an 18 year old able to buy a weapon of war at a retail store? Because if that officer truly got that phone call and had burst into the classroom and shot the killer: odds are his wife still would have died. And why is that? Why can’t we prevent that? Why are we the only country in the world where this regularly happens?

Demand answers to those questions.