Officials in Uvalde, Texas, announced Wednesday that they had failed to release some police bodycam and dashboard footage related to the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School, as required by a settlement with news organizations that had sued for access.
After the city released hundreds of recordings to news organizations including ProPublica and The Texas Tribune on Saturday, a Uvalde police official said some of his bodycam footage from the May 24, 2022, shooting was missing, according to a city news release.
Police Chief Homer Delgado then ordered a review of the department’s servers, which found “several additional videos.” The city did not disclose which officers or patrol cars the missing footage belonged to.
According to information initially provided by Uvalde police to Texas Department of Public Safety investigators, seven of the 25 officers who responded to the incident had their body cameras on the day of the shooting. The records released Saturday included footage from only five of the officers’ body cameras. Whether the city’s discovery of additional materials is limited to the two remaining body cameras or includes additional footage from more officers is unknown.
The department has forwarded the newly discovered footage to District Attorney Christina Mitchell for review. Delgado also ordered an internal investigation to determine how the error occurred. That investigation will determine which department employees are responsible and what disciplinary action may be warranted, the release said.
“I have ordered an immediate review of all footage capture and storage protocols within the UPD and will implement a new process to ensure our department meets the highest standards,” Delgado, who joined the department last year, said in a statement. “The Uvalde community and the public deserve nothing less.”
It is unclear whether Mitchell, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, had access to the footage when she assessed whether officers should be criminally charged for their mishandling of the shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
In June, a grand jury indicted former Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo and Officer Adrian Gonzales on child endangerment charges. Both men pleaded not guilty. No Uvalde police officers were charged.
News organizations, including The Tribune and ProPublica, sued several local and state agencies more than two years ago for access to records related to the shooting. The city settled with the new organizations and agreed to provide records requested under the state’s Public Information Act, including body camera footage from all police officers who viewed the shooting. Three other agencies — the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office — continue to fight to avoid releasing records.
City officials did not respond to requests for comment but said in a statement that they would review the judge’s order releasing the documents to ensure they comply with the settlement terms reached with the news organizations.
Reid Pillifant, an attorney with the Haynes Boone law firm representing the news organizations, said he appreciated the police department’s “quick response in conducting an audit to ensure that all relevant materials are made available to the public as quickly as possible.”
The Tribune, ProPublica and FRONTLINE independently obtained a trove of investigative material through a confidential source. That trove includes bodycam footage from two Uvalde police officers — Jesus Mendoza and Joe Zamora — that was not released Saturday. The editors analyzed Mendoza’s 25 minutes of bodycam footage and his interview with state investigators as part of an investigation into the botched law enforcement response that included a documentary revealing that while children knew what to do when confronted with a mass murderer, many police officers did not.
Zamora’s body camera footage, which lasts only about eight minutes, appears to show him at the home of the shooter’s grandmother, whom the teenager shot in the face before heading to school.
In the footage, a crying woman can be heard saying: “I knew it was my nephew.” She adds: “He didn’t want to live anymore.”
