Speaking to the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) expressed frustration with commentary by some House members regarding the Uvalde school shooting last week at Robb Elementary. Roy urged colleagues to avoid rushes to judgement.
Roy addressed the Judiciary Committee during a markup for H.R. 7910 known as the Protecting our Kids Act. The bill, in its current form, aims to provide for an increased age limit on the purchase of certain firearms, prevents gun trafficking, modernizes the prohibition on untraceable or “ghost” firearms, encourages safe storage, and more.
Roy told the committee he knows many in the tight-knit community of Uvalde and spoke about communications with the mayor since the shooting. Roy described the shooter and his actions on that day as “the face of evil.”
Although Roy opposes the legislation and is doubtful it would have any impact on future shootings, he says he appreciates the intent. Roy then cautioned colleagues on making statements and proposing actions prematurely.
“I would just ask for members to respect the process of looking through and determining the facts before we pass judgement,” Roy urged. He explained that he has received different accounts of facts and some have later been disproven.
Roy addressed an allegation made that a teacher left an exterior door to the school propped open with a rock. That allegation, made during by DPS Director Steve McCraw, was later retracted the law enforcement agency.
“The entire country was saying, ‘What’s the matter with this teacher who propped this door?’ Imagine, and I happen to know some facts about this, what that meant to that teacher, everybody is out across America blaming her,” Roy added.
Congressman Roy went on to tell the committee that the same rush to judgement has been applied to the police response to the shooting. He added, “and now the police, blaming 19 cops, or 7 cops, or 3 cops, I get a different quote from every person talking about it … standing in the hallway like they’re sitting around with their thumb up their rear while bad things are happening, well that’s not true, fully based upon a number of accounts.”
Roy then asked his colleagues to “Wait on the damn facts because these are people, and we ought to be making sober judgements about what actually occurred and making policy accordingly.”
In his statement, Roy rhetorically questions whether school security features, including steel doors, prevented the officers from entering or the key was not accessible to the officers.
Finally, Roy concluded by addressing misconceptions about an AR-15 rifle being “a weapon of war” and correcting an assertion that fully automatic weapons can be obtained without a permit.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.