(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — A Kentucky pediatrician was charged in a plot she allegedly conceived to kill her ex-husband and gain sole custody of her children, according to court documents unsealed by the Justice Department.
According to the criminal complaint, Dr. Stephanie Russell, 52, asked an undercover agent posing as a hitman for “Christmas flowers” to be delivered to her ex-husband before Christmas last year, FBI investigators say. The FBI alleges that Christmas flowers is a moniker for carrying out a hit against her ex-husband.
Investigators say Russell allegedly sent text messages to the agent arranging for the murder as well as payment for the plot.
Russell is charged with the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire. She appeared in federal court in Louisville, Kentucky, last week and pleaded not guilty. Her trial is set for August. An attorney representing Russell did not return ABC News’ request for comment.
FBI investigators say they were first tipped off about Russell in 2019, when a nanny for the family said in a sworn affidavit provided by the attorney of Russell’s husband that Russell had asked the nanny if she knew “some really bad people,” according to the complaint. The nanny said she thought she was joking at first, according to investigators.
Investigators say they did not find enough evidence to charge Russell at that time.
Russell had previously accused her husband, Rick Crabtree, of abusing their children. An investigation by the Louisville Metro Police Department did not find evidence of the abuse and Crabtree was awarded custody of their children while Russell had supervised visits two days a week.
Crabtree did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Nearly three years later, a Louisville private investigator came to the FBI with what he believed was a murder-for-hire plot involving the same pediatrician, court documents say.
A confidential witness, who was employed at Russell’s practice, then told the FBI that between July 2021 and March 2022, Russell approached two nurses at her practices on separate occasions and asked each of them for help in killing Crabtree, investigators allege.
Text messages, investigators allege, prove that Russell wanted to carry out a hit against to her ex-husband.
In the messages, Russell and a second witness agreed to a payment of $4,000 to deliver “Christmas flowers,” the complaint shows. Russell agreed to pay the person another $1,000 if the plan was carried out before Christmas, investigators say.
The witness initially told Russell that the hitman they knew had died and was no longer able to carry out the hit, but months later, according to the FBI, she was still looking for someone to kill her ex-husband.
In May of 2022, Russell informed the witness she was still looking for “flowers,” the court documents say. The witness then gave her the number of an FBI undercover agent, who said they could facilitate the “delivery of flowers” to her ex-husband.
Russell allegedly asked the undercover agent to make it appear as if Crabtree committed suicide, investigators say. She gave the agent information on how to unlock the biometric lock code on her ex-husband’s phone so that the agent could text a fake suicide note after his death, according to the complaint.
The doctor also expressed concern that she would look “guilty” because she had expressed distain for her ex-husband publicly before, according to the complaint.
Russell left $3,500 outside of her office as “payment” for the undercover agent, investigators say.
Russell is in custody pending her trial. If convicted, she faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, the DOJ says.
(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) — Jennifer Rourke, a candidate for Rhode Island State Senate, claimed on Twitter that she was attacked at an abortion rally in Providence by her opponent in the race, police officer Jeann Lugo. The rally took place hours after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that provided federal protection of abortion rights, now instead leaving it to states to pass their own laws.
Providence police said they are criminally investigating an off-duty officer after “a female subject was assaulted” at a protest outside the Rhode Island State House Friday night. Lugo was identified by police as the subject of the investigation, according to ABC affiliate WLNE.
“The officer has served on the department for three years and was placed on administrative leave with pay this morning, pending a criminal investigation and administrative review,” Rhode Island police said in a statement.
In an interview with the Providence Journal, Lugo did not deny punching his opponent, but also claimed Rourke became physical with him. The Journal said Rourke denied that accusation.
“I’m not going to deny,” Lugo told The Journal of the punching allegation. “It was very chaotic, so I can’t really tell you right now. Everything happened very fast.”
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden remains unmoved on the issue of court expansion, the White House said, despite his criticism of the Supreme Court rulings handed down this week on gun rights and abortion.
“That is something that the president does not agree with,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday when asked about such a reform. “That is not something that he wants to do.”
Democrats and activists are floating the idea after the high court expanded gun rights and did away with 50 years of precedent to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and others expressly called for expanding the court in the wake of the decision on abortion access.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said court expansion is “critical.”
“We need to balance out this court before they do more harm than what they’ve done thus far,” Adams said at a press conference on Friday, where he said he wouldn’t have become the city’s leader if his former partner didn’t get an abortion when they were in their teens.
Biden has never expressed great interest in expanding the high court, even when many of his opponents in the 2020 Democratic primary for president were supportive of the reform.
After he was elected, Biden appointed a 36-member bipartisan commission to study potential changes to the Supreme Court — including the addition of more seats, as well as term limits and a code of ethics for justices.
The commission unanimously adopted a report late last year, in which they warned that excessive change to the institution could cause democracy to regress in the future.
The panel found “considerable” support for 18-year term limits for justices, but the issue of expanding the court beyond nine seats was met with “profound disagreement.”
“There was a commission that was put together about how to potentially move forward with the court, reform the court,” Jean-Pierre said Saturday. “I don’t have anything more to share from any final decision that the president has made.”
Biden has issued forceful condemnations of both Supreme Court decisions.
He described being “deeply disappointed” in the June 23 ruling striking down a century-old New York law limiting concealed handguns in public, stating it “contradicts common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.”
The Roe repeal, he said, was a “sad day” for the Supreme Court and the nation.
“Make no mistake: This decision is the culmination of a deliberate effort over decades to upset the balance of our law,” he said Friday in remarks delivered from the Cross Hall of the White House. “It’s a realization of an extreme ideology and a tragic error by the Supreme Court, in my view.”
In response, Biden said he was instructing federal agencies to protect nationwide access to federally approved medication like contraception, and employed the Department of Justice to ensure women can travel out-of-state for abortion services where the procedure is legal.
The president continued his criticism on Saturday, telling reporters that the Supreme Court “has made some terrible decisions.”
(CHICAGO) — One person is dead and two were inujured after a shooting at a WeatherTech warehouse in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook early Saturday morning, ABC Chicago station, WLS reported.
Officers were dispatched to 1 Weathertech Way at 6:25 a.m. Saturday in response to reports of a subject shot, Bolingbrook police said in an online statement.
The suspect was located and taken into custody Saturday at approximately 9:25 a.m., police said.
According to police, in addition to the one victim dead, another is in critical condition and one has been released from the hospital.
The incident is still under investigation, authorities said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(CHEYENNE, Wyo.) — For Wyoming, a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade means an automatic ban on abortion as the state is one of 13 that have enacted “trigger bans” on abortions. But even as Roe stood, the state sat in a so-called “abortion desert” where access to pregnancy termination was few and far between.
In a ruling Friday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that protected the constitutional right to abortion nationally. Now, it will be up to the state legislatures to decide on abortion rights.
In Wyoming, even anticipating this possibility, advocates for abortion rights fought to gain access to abortion care for patients in the state — and questioned how a historically libertarian state became so restrictive.
Wyoming law tightens
In March, Gov. Mark Gordon signed a bill passed by both the Wyoming House and Senate. The bill, HB0092, would ban abortion in all circumstances except rape, incest or if the mother is in serious risk of death or injury, if the protections of Roe are overturned. It would also prohibit the use of government funding towards an abortion.
Following a Supreme Court ruling, the law could become active in about a month.
The governor’s office told ABC News that Gordon will adhere to the process outlined in the bill and has no additional comment regarding his choice to sign the legislation.
On Friday, Gordon tweeted a statement in support of the Supreme Court’s ruling, calling it “a decisive win for those who have fought for the rights of the unborn for the past 50 years.”
Republican state Rep. Patrick Sweeney, who voted against the trigger law, said in a press call Friday that it was difficult for the House to get the rape and incest clause included in the Senate’s bill, and he worries that clause could be removed in the legislation’s next session.
Sharon Breitweiser, executive director of Pro-Choice Wyoming, told ABC News before the Supreme Court’s decision that this ban could become reality “sooner than we had ever thought possible.”
She said in prior legislative cycles, the organization was always able to find “compassionate, realistic” elected officials who would be able to hold such anti-abortion laws from reaching the governor’s desk.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming tweeted Friday in support of the court’s decision to overturn Roe.
“The Supreme Court today ruled to return power back to states to legislate in a way that reflects the will of their voters. With today’s decision, the U.S. will no longer have the same anti-life laws as countries like communist China & North Korea,” he wrote.
Brent Blue, who provided abortions in Wyoming for decades, said the new state ban is hypocritical to Wyoming political tradition.
“It’s sexist, it’s racist and it’s anti-Wyoming,” said Blue, who spoke with ABC News before the Supreme Court’s decision. “It’s the government interfering with the lives of individuals, when the Republican party in the state has dedicated itself for decades to getting the government out of the lives of individuals.”
Blue said that the new legislation has no accountability because there is no medical or financial assistance offered to children who are born to parents without resources, saying “the hypocrisy is overwhelming.”
“To try to limit access is really promoting poverty and is really racist… it’s going to affect poor women and women of color, and the true irony and crime involved is that the same people voting for this are voting against Medicaid expansion for parents who have no resources,” Blue added.
The push to open a second clinic
Currently, Wyoming has one health care center that offers abortions, the Women’s Health & Family Care in Jackson, which has the phrase “management of unplanned pregnancy,” on their website’s gynecology page. The center’s pregnancy termination services are limited to medication abortions, which can be administered only up to 10 weeks’ gestation.
However, Wellspring Health Access, a national abortion rights organization, is in the midst of building a full-service abortion clinic in Casper.
Wellspring Health Access has been working to establish the clinic for almost two years, its founder and president Julie Burkhart told ABC News. But just as the clinic was reaching its opening date, an arson attack on May 25 pushed back the clinic’s opening by several weeks.
Even before the arson attack, the clinic has become home to regular protests by anti-abortion rights groups, according to Burkhart.
Now, with the Supreme Court decision, Wellspring may never be able to provide abortions in their Wyoming clinic. Burkhart said in a Friday statement the ruling will impact those “who already face the greatest barriers to access” including “people living in rural communities, the Native population and people with low incomes.”
Burkhart told ABC News before the decision that Wyoming residents sought out the organization to establish a clinic in their state. The clinic was strategically placed in central Wyoming to reach not only Wyoming patients, but also those who live in restrictive nearby states such as Nebraska, South Dakota and Montana.
Before the May ban was introduced, Wyoming law had moderate restrictions on abortions, allowing abortions to occur until the fetus was viable, around 24 weeks, following the framework of Roe.
Therefore, Burkhart said it had made sense for Wellspring to go to Wyoming when they started planning the Casper clinic in 2020, since it was a historically libertarian state where laws lacked major restrictions on abortion.
Burkhart said the Wellspring team has found much support in Casper from both vendors and community members, despite the recent arson attack.
“My absolute assessment is that there are some folks who we know who have been elected to the state Legislature over the past couple of cycles who do not speak for the broader majority of Wyomingites and they have their axe to grind,” Burkhart told ABC News. “They have their agenda, and unfortunately, it’s not what people in the state feel is needed or necessary.”
While most Americans nationally support abortion rights, a 2014 Pew Research poll found abortion beliefs to be right down the middle in the state, with 48% of Wyoming adults feeling abortion should be legal in most cases, and 49% believing it should be illegal in most cases.
Before the Friday ruling, Burkhart said Wellspring was already working on a legal strategy that she is hopeful will protect their ability to provide full reproductive care. She said Friday it is an “immediate” priority for the organization to determine the best legal steps going forward.
“The Wyoming constitution has strong protections for Wyomingites’ bodily autonomy. We will fight tooth and nail to protect this fundamental right for the people of Wyoming, including in the courts. We call on Wyoming lawmakers to honor the Wyoming constitution and take action to protect abortion access for the people of this state,” Burkhart said in a statement Friday.
Going out of state for care to end a pregnancy
The average distance a person in Wyoming must drive to obtain an abortion before 14 weeks was 132 miles, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization. That distance may expand as bans emerge, pushing people to leave their state to obtain abortion care.
Riata Little Walker, a lifelong Wyoming resident in Casper, said she had to travel to Denver, Colorado, to receive care when her pregnancy took a turn for the worse in January 2020.
Walker and her husband were ready to have their first child when doctors found a complex combination of heart defects in the fetus. At 22 weeks, Walker said she decided to be induced into labor to terminate the pregnancy.
“We were given our options, but there was no talk of leaving the hospital,” Walker told ABC News. “There was a chance our daughter could have survived birth, but she was incurable and she would have suffered greatly.”
Ultimately, Walker said she decided to undergo “termination for medical reasons,” or TFMR. In the second and third trimester, abortions can be performed by inducing labor, which includes labor and delivery.
Dr. Jeffrey Marcus, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist with North Atlanta Women’s Specialists in Georgia, told U.S. News TFMR is “when a pregnancy is ended due to a structural, genetic or chromosomal abnormality of the baby or when continuing the pregnancy would risk the health of mother.” Marcus said because it was technically abortion, an overturning of Roe would mean TFMR would not be a guaranteed option for women who receive such diagnoses.
“A lot of people don’t want to look at TFMR as abortion, but it is,” Walker said.
After the induced labor, Walker’s daughter survived for 10 minutes, during which the family said goodbye, took pictures and had her baptized. The care and compassion Walker felt from the medical professionals in Denver impacted her, she said.
“We were able to choose the best option for us and have the time that we needed to take care of our daughter,” Walker said. “Most people have to go to an abortion clinic and walk through protesters.”
Walker said she and her husband were fortunate because they had the resources to get top-level care in Denver, including her mother driving them there. The one-night stay for the procedure cost $19,000, she said.
Walker said she comes from a conservative, Catholic family of Wyoming ranchers, but added that even her great-grandparents believed abortion should be “a private decision.”
“Wyoming has had a terrible shift,” she said of the state’s politics, adding it “used to be ‘live and let live.'”
The possibility of a ban in Wyoming has Walker concerned for the futures of women in the state.
“I was pro-life with exceptions for rape, incest or if the mother had to make a decision [for her health],” Walker said, before the Supreme Court’s ruling. “But then I realized that actually meant I was pro-choice. It’s too gray to say one situation is OK and one isn’t, not everyone is going to agree, but they should have a choice.”
(NEW YORK) — Before the Supreme Court released its ruling Friday upending abortion rights in the U.S., Elisa Wells was thinking of virtual mailboxes.
For people who move or travel a lot, a virtual mailbox is a way to check their mail online. If an item is critical, they forward it to their current location.
For Wells, founder of the online abortion site Plan C, which tells women how to find the abortion pill, it’s a potential workaround to state laws restricting access.
Using dried garbanzo beans and old pill bottles, Wells tested whether a virtual mailbox set up in a state like California or New York — which allow abortion pills to be prescribed through a telehealth appointment — could make its way to a woman in a state like Texas or Oklahoma that restrict access.
The answer was yes.
“We want all the information we provide on our website to be as helpful as possible,” Wells told ABC’s “20/20.”
“We know that people looking for abortion care, especially in restricted states are in a really stressful situation. And we don’t want them to have to guess about what to do and which services to use,” she added.
As 26 states are expected to eventually ban or severely restrict abortion in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson, a grassroots resistance movement is on the rise that looks notably different than it did in the 1960s.
Unlike before the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion, about half of the U.S. will already offer abortion access, and several online-based state funds are providing patients with flights, child care, gas cards and access to food delivery services like Grubhub and DoorDash if they need to travel far. The National Abortion Federation is expanding a nationwide hotline — established in 1978 — to connect abortion seekers to those funds.
“It is just really important that people understand that there is an infrastructure in place right now to help people move across the country and to help provide support,” said Melissa Fowler, chief program officer at NAF.
It’s possible anti-abortion rights states will try to brand such efforts as illegal, paving the way for more court challenges.
The other major difference is federal approval 22 years ago of the drug mifepristone. Used in combination with another drug, misoprostol – commonly prescribed for stomach ulcers — the Food and Drug Administration says the pills can be used to induce an abortion so long as a woman is within 10 weeks of pregnancy.
The FDA also says those drugs can be prescribed through a telehealth appointment and mailed to the person’s home, although anti-abortion states have restricted access. A group called Just the Pill and Abortion Delivered said Friday that it’s now launching new mobile clinics in Colorado — one that will offer surgical abortion for patients over 11 weeks, and another equipped entirely for telehealth appointments for medication abortion.
Another group, called Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equality, is training local activists on how to “self-manage” an abortion, including when and how to take mifepristone and misoprostol. Several anti-abortion rights lawmakers and activists say this could potentially violate state laws that prohibit “aiding and abetting” abortion.
Kimberly Inez McGuire, head of URGE, said she believes their work will be protected as free speech.
“Before Roe (v Wade), we did not have safe and effective abortion pills like we do now. We didn’t have the internet. And so it really is a different circumstance,” she said.
This grassroots movement also is looking overseas. Among the options the website Plan C points people towards is Aid Access, an international organization that prescribes the abortion pill to women in the U.S. even if their state law prohibits it.
Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, founder of the organization, told ABC that she will personally conduct a telehealth appointment online with American patients and prescribe the pills to them for 95 euros; the pills are then filled from a pharmacy in India and mailed to the U.S. address. Gomperts said she believes state laws only apply to residents of that state, whereas she works out of Amsterdam and Austria.
The FDA though warns getting medications overseas from sites not regulated by the U.S. could be dangerous. Under federal rules, the abortion pill can only be prescribed by certified clinicians and provided from FDA-inspected manufacturers.
Another drawback: The medication can take as long as three weeks to arrive – posing a risk that patients may take the medication too late in their pregnancy.
Gomperts said she is confident in the quality of the product and will continue to offer the service. She predicted other doctors in the U.S. and around the world will follow suit as states ban abortion.
“What will happen (in the U.S.) is what happens everywhere in the world and that is that there will be huge underground markets,” she told ABC’s “Nightline.”
(SEVIERVILLE, Tenn.) — A black bear has died after accidentally locking itself inside a hot car while authorities say it was most likely scavenging for food.
The incident occurred at a rental cabin in Sevierville, Tennessee — approximately 30 miles east of Knoxville — when authorities from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) say the owner of the vehicle the bear was found had left the property in a different vehicle at around 10 a.m.
But when the owner returned to the home approximately nine hours later at 6:45 p.m., they found the bear dead inside the vehicle with the car doors shut.
“It appears that the bear got inside the car by using its teeth or paws to open the unlocked door and was trapped inside after the door shut behind it,” the TWRA said in a post on social media. “We believe that heat likely killed the bear as outside temperatures exceeded 95 degrees [on Wednesday] meaning the vehicle’s interior possibly reached over 140 degrees.”
Pictures released by the TWRA show the bear slumped between the driver’s seat and the front passenger’s seat as a soda can and food waste can be seen on the floor of the car.
Citing the incident, authorities implored the public to be extra cautious and vigilant when it comes to dealing with and disposing of food in areas where bears might be.
“Here is a good example of how garbage kills bears … Notice the empty soda can and food package on the floorboard,” warned the TWRA. “Bears have noses 7 times better than a bloodhound and can smell even the faintest odor of food inside a vehicle. Lock your doors, roll up your windows, and never leave food or anything that smells like food inside! Empty food containers, candy wrappers, fast food bags, and even air fresheners can attract bears.”
(WASHINGTON) — Ali Alexander, the conservative activist behind the “Stop the Steal” movement, appeared Friday before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Alexander’s attorney confirmed to ABC News.
Alexander provided nearly three hours of testimony to one of the grand juries impaneled in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., as part of the Department of Justice’s criminal probe into the events of Jan. 6, Alexander’s attorney, Paul Kamenar, said.
The appearance came six months after Alexander testified before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
In a written statement on Friday, Alexander said that several months ago he received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office “requesting essentially the same documents I turned over to the January 6 Committee and to testify.”
“I was assured that I was not a target but a fact witness,” Alexander said in the statement. “I provided the documents requested and suggested they obtain my full transcript of my testimony from the January 6 Committee. They responded then that they cannot obtain those transcripts due to separation of powers and thus, they needed me to repeat my testimony here today.”
Alexander, who organized a series of “Stop the Steal” rallies in the months leading up to Jan. 6, was at the U.S. Capitol during the attack but has said he was only there to de-escalate the conflict, and that his comments at rallies and on livestreams leading up to the riot have been taken out of context and misconstrued as encouraging violence.
“I did not plan or participate in any illegal activity, and in fact, pleaded with protestors not to enter the Capitol,” he said in Friday’s statement.
On Dec. 9, Alexander spent eight hours taking questions from the House Jan. 6 committee on everything from his organization’s finances to his communications with Republican officials. Afterward Alexander described the tone of the questions as “absolutely adversarial,” but said he was “truthful” with the committee.
Later that month, ABC News reported that Alexander had told congressional investigators that he had communicated with several House Republican lawmakers ahead of the Jan. 6 rally and Capitol riot, along with at least one member of the Trump family’s inner circle. Alexander disclosed his communications in a lawsuit he filed challenging the panel from obtaining his phone records from Verizon.
Alexander disclosed his communications in a lawsuit he filed trying to prevent the panel from obtaining his phone records from Verizon.
“I am challenging in court the Select Committee’s unlawful subpoena to Verizon to fish through my phone records and those of one of my volunteers whose only ‘crime’ was to exercise her First Amendment rights to pass out a few signs at the rallies, sing patriotic songs, and pray,” Alexander said in Friday’s statement.
(NEW YORK) — The federal case against Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, a former Theranos executive accused of defrauding investors and patients, is now in the hands of a jury.
Prosecutors and lawyers for Balwani — the ex-boyfriend of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes — wrapped up their closing arguments on Friday following several weeks of witness testimony.
The jury is expected to begin its deliberations on Friday.
Prosecutors say Balwani and Holmes, who touted her startup’s technology as capable of accurately and reliably running any blood test, fraudulently raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors.
Money poured in, but the miniature blood-testing device, dubbed the “Edison,” could never run more than 12 tests, government attorneys said.
Balwani joined the company in 2009, guaranteeing a $10 million loan and quickly rising to the post of president and COO of Theranos. While his attorneys sought to distinguish his position in the company from the CEO, Holmes, prosecutors say he played an equal role in the fraud.
“I am responsible for everything at Theranos. All have been my decisions too,” read a text message from Balwani to Holmes in July 2015, which Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Schenk presented to the jury in his final argument.
“Of course [Balwani] had a hand in making the decisions at Theranos,” defense attorney Jeff Coopersmith said during his closing argument.
But, Coopersmith, said in meetings with investors and others, “everyone was listening to Elizabeth Holmes.” The company was her vision, he added, and Balwani had bought in.
“Mr. Balwani is not a victim. He’s a perpetrator of the fraud,” the prosecutor, Schenk, said to wrap up his remarks.
The feds originally charged Balwani and Holmes together. But their trials were later severed after Holmes revealed she may testify to abuse at the hands of Balwani. She was convicted in January of four counts of fraud related to investors. She is expected to be sentenced in September.
Balwani faces similar charges: 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted on just one count.
Wayne Kaatz, a juror on the Holmes case, told ABC News in an exclusive interview earlier this year that his group of 12 jurors convicted Holmes, in part, because “everything went through her,” he said. “She had final approval.”
He also revealed his team found Holmes’ testimony largely not credible. Balwani, in his trial, did not take the stand.
(UVALDE, Texas) — One month has passed since a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, and a series of new revelations about the May 24 shooting has done little to abate the frustrations of Uvalde’s residents as they continue to heal.
State and local officials have spent weeks trying to reconcile incomplete and, at times, conflicting reports on the shooting and the questionable police response. And while multiple investigations remain ongoing — including one being conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice — some critical facts remain elusive following one of the deadliest school shootings in the nation’s history.
Some information emerged this week when Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw, whose agency is conducting one of the probes, testified before the Texas state legislature. McCraw, who presented an updated timeline of events that he said was based on video surveillance and police communications, characterized the police response as an “abject failure,” and offered what appeared to be the most complete account of what occurred during the deadly rampage.
In McCraw’s telling, enough officers and equipment arrived on the scene within three minutes to “neutralize” the 18-year-old shooter. He also made the stunning assertion that the door to the classroom containing the gunman might have been unlocked all along — even as officers waited more than an hour to find a key that would open it.
“One hour, 14 minutes and eight seconds. That’s how long the children waited, and the teachers waited, in rooms 111 and 112 to be rescued,” McCraw said. “And while they waited, the on-scene commander waited for radios and rifles. Then he waited for shields. Then he waited for SWAT. Lastly, he waited for a key that was never needed.”
Police officers arrived on-scene almost immediately, but failed to overcome logistical and communications challenges in time to limit the carnage. McCraw said officers had difficulty communicating because their radios had no reception inside the building, contributing to a leadership vacuum that crippled the police response.
McCraw reserved his harshest criticism for Pete Arredondo, the embattled school district police chief who was the on-scene incident commander. McCraw called Arredondo “the only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering” the classrooms and killing the gunman.
“[Arredondo] decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” McCraw said.
McCraw’s condemnation of Arredondo has added to a growing chorus of outrage over the police response on May 24. Emotional accounts from survivors and first responders before Congress and in the press have cast a critical eye on law enforcement.
“They’re cowards,” teacher Arnulfo Reyes, who lost 11 students and sustained multiple gunshot wounds, told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “They sit there and did nothing for our community. They took a long time to go in … I will never forgive them.”
Meanwhile, after several weeks of community members calling for Arredondo’s resignation, the Uvalde school superintendent on Wednesday placed Arredondo on administrative leave. Arredondo has not responded to multiple requests for comment from ABC News.
“He should never be allowed to work in law enforcement again,” one member of the Uvalde community told ABC affiliate KSAT on Wednesday. “My personal opinion.”
Many Uvalde residents say the shifting narrative has fostered an immense distrust of authorities — while the lack of information has provided little solace to relatives of the victims. A number of family members hope that an upcoming report from the county medical examiner will answer some of their most pressing questions.
“[The medical examiner] can tell us more or less what happened to our child. Was [her death] immediate or could she have been saved if [police] went in faster?” Kim Rubio, the mother of Uvalde victim Lexi Rubio, told ABC News’ Mireya Villareal. “I just think about how long she was there. Was she scared? Was she in pain? It just worries me.”
Demands for investigative documents also reached new heights this week, prompting a new round of infighting among officials.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin on Tuesday accused McCraw of “[having] an agenda, and it’s not to present a full report on what happened and to give factual answers to the families of this community.”
On Wednesday, a Texas state senator who represents Uvalde filed a lawsuit against McCraw’s agency seeking access to its investigative records. The Department of Public Safety did not respond to the lawsuit nor to McLaughlin’s criticism.
“From the very start, the response to this awful gun tragedy has been full of misinformation and outright lies from our government,” state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat, wrote in an eight-page complaint.
During his Tuesday appearance before the state legislature, McCraw said the district attorney who covers Uvalde, Christina Busbee, told him to cease contact with lawmakers and the press. McCraw pledged to release investigative records and video surveillance footage of the shooting once Busbee approves their release.
Uvalde residents say they hope they won’t have to wait much longer.
