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Raptor, the Uvalde school district’s emergency alert system, remains in place — for now

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(UVALDE, Texas) — When Texas state legislators delved into the circumstances that preceded the deadly mass shooting in Uvalde that took the lives of 19 students and two teachers last year, lawmakers highlighted failures of leadership, law enforcement training and communication capabilities.

But buried in their 77-page report on the shooting, committee members also took note of apparent issues surrounding the school district’s emergency alert system, called Raptor, which uses a cellphone app to disseminate lockdown information and nearby police activity. Poor Wi-Fi service and a staff desensitized to alerts by frequent notifications diminished the app’s effectiveness, the committee found.

“If the alert had reached more teachers sooner, it is likely that more could have been done to protect them and their students,” according to the committee’s investigative report, which was published in July 2022.

A year has now passed since the deadly shooting at Robb Elementary School. New leadership is in place, police training protocols have been overhauled, and communications systems have been upgraded.

But the district’s contract with Raptor Technologies, the Houston-based developer of the emergency alert app used at Robb Elementary School, remains in place.

Gary Patterson, the school district’s interim superintendent, told ABC News that the school district would prefer to keep Raptor, but he said the app “hasn’t changed” — and if the district can’t “make this work” by the fall, he and the new school district police chief would consider other options.

“Could we go to another application and use that? Yes, I guess we could. But we’ve got an investment and training in it,” Patterson said of the Raptor system. “I don’t know that we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

Both Patterson and Josh Gutierrez, the school district’s new police chief, emphasized that Raptor cannot be relied on completely for school security safety — but that it is an important tool to help detect threats and quickly alert school staff to lock down situations.

“It’s a piece for the tool belt,” Gutierrez said. “It’s not what we’re relying on … it’ll help alert, but at the same time, we’ve still got to rely on our man-made interactions, our communication skills.”

The legislative committee’s report found that during the Robb shooting, the alerts issued on the Raptor system did not sufficiently warn school staff members after the school’s principal triggered the system. The panel said that complications with the school’s Wi-Fi may have hindered teachers’ ability to receive an alert. The district has since prioritized strengthening the Wi-Fi on its campuses.

Lawmakers also found that an influx of notifications in recent months “diluted” the seriousness of the lockdown warning. Raptor was installed just months before the shooting, and in that time, staff members received more than 50 alerts — a frequency that “contributed to a diminished sense of vigilance about responding to security alerts,” the committee said.

Most of those alerts were in response to what the committee described as nearby “bailouts,” referring to incidents when undocumented immigrants flee their vehicles and attempt to outrun police.

At least one teacher, third- and-fourth-grade teacher Arnulfo Reyes, who was wounded in the attack, previously told ABC News he did not receive a message through the Raptor app.

Raptor Technologies declined to comment for this story when contacted by ABC News. But last year a representative from the tech firm pushed back against some of the legislative panel’s findings, telling ABC News at the time that the report “paints an ambiguous and potentially misleading picture” of Raptor’s role in the shooting.

New officials Patterson and Gutierrez cited several other improvements they’d like to see in the Raptor platform, including an upgrade to the app’s interface and an update to the “verbiage” in the app so it better aligns with the language used by law enforcement — for example using the term “lockdown” instead of “lockout.”

“It’s pretty easy — unless you’re highly trained in it — to hit the wrong button sometimes,” Patterson said. “So that’s why I’m saying that it’s not perfect. It’s a tool that we can improve in several ways.”

Raptor is part of a growing security industry that’s been buttressed by the drumbeat of mass shootings in schools and elsewhere.

School security technologies have become a fixture in many districts, with companies raking in more than $3 billion in 2021, up from $2.7 billion in 2017, according to a market analysis by technology research firm Omdia.

Critics, however, say the industry is profiting on the fears of yet another attack, and some have raised questions about how well many of the tech products work. One government-funded study from 2016 found “limited and conflicting evidence in the literature on the short- and long-term effectiveness of school safety technology.”

Patterson and Gutierrez repeatedly said that Raptor and other school safety technologies could not replace solid training and human-facing preventative measures, like engaging with students and practicing emergency lockdown scenarios with staff.

In Uvalde, members of the community remain frustrated with the lack of progress after lawmakers and law enforcement officials pledged to address a myriad of issues that contributed to the failed response to the shooting — including the district’s ongoing relationship with Raptor.

“To this day, they’re still utilizing the Raptor system,” Gladys Gonzales, whose daughter survived the shooting, told ABC News’ Mireya Villareal in an interview. “It’s not the ideal, but it’s still being used. So that in our eyes is not good.”

“You’re frustrated with that?” Villareal asked.

Yes. Yes, we are,” Gonzales said. “Many of us are.”

Stock market drop over debt ceiling could begin within days, experts said

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The U.S. could breach the debt ceiling as soon as next week, plunging the stock market by nearly half if a protracted default ensues, according to a White House projection.

Stock investors, however, don’t seem worried — at least for now. All of the major stock indices have inched upward over the past five days, defying alarm of a potential economic cataclysm.

Investors are confident that policymakers will reach a deal on either a comprehensive agreement or a stop-gap measure that averts a debt ceiling breach, market analysts told ABC News.

If the White House and Congress fail to make significant progress this week, the uncertainty will put stress on the stock market, they added.

“It would be a mess,” Ed Moya, a senior market analyst at broker OANDA, told ABC News. “If we don’t get a deal before the weekend, I think everyone will be paying close attention.”

A stock market plunge would significantly erode the retirement savings of many Americans, since investors often peg 401(k) accounts to the S&P 500.

Failure to raise the debt ceiling would send financial markets into turmoil, raise interest rates at a moment when elevated borrowing costs already weigh on economic activity and all but ensure a recession.

Nine days remain before the June 1 deadline — the date when the U.S. could fail to pay its bills, said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Yellen reiterated that concern in a letter to congressional leaders on Monday, describing it as “highly likely” that the Treasury will run out of money in early June.

In a closed-door meeting with House Republicans Tuesday morning, Speaker Kevin McCarthy told his conference he and the White House are “nowhere a deal” on the debt limit and spending, urging members to hold firm, sources told ABC News.

Still, investors appear to believe that policymakers will strike a deal, with many drawing comfort from the outcome of an acrimonious debt ceiling fight in 2011 that resulted in a bipartisan agreement at the final hour, experts said.

“The underlying assumption is that they will manage to pass some last-minute agreement — pulling out of the same playbook as 2011,” Gregory Daco, chief economist at accounting firm Ernst & Young, told ABC News.

The dispute in 2011 caused the S&P 500 to fall more than 16% before lawmakers reached a deal. Within two months, the market had rallied to the same level where it stood before the drop.

The resolve of investors may stem in part from the expectation that an eventual market downturn would be reversible, Callie Cox, an investment analyst at financial services company eToro, told ABC News.

“It might just be a situation like ripping a Band-Aid off,” Cox said. “It hurts a little bit and prices rally after that.”

Analysts cautioned, however, that the market downturn in the event of an unprecedented debt ceiling breach would be significant, leaving stock performance afterward uncertain even if lawmakers quickly strike a deal.

Due to the severity of that risk, the market will likely show signs of downward pressure in the coming days as confidence in policymakers starts to wobble, they said.

“The next couple days, if there is no progress or if we hit a major roadblock, then we will probably start to see more stress,” said Moya. “We’ll start to see the market 1% down and that could grow to 2% or 3%.”

“If we do breach the debt ceiling, if we are unable to avoid default, I think the immediate price reaction would be a bear market plunge of 20%,” Moya added.

In fact, an initial drop in the stock market could help push policymakers toward a deal, placing investors in a staring contest with those brokering an agreement, Keith Lerner, co-chief investment officer and chief market strategist at Truist Advisory Services, told ABC News.

“Recently these things have come down to the wire and the market starts moving and it forces the politicians to act,” Lerner said. “Right now, the market isn’t putting too much pressure on the politicians.”

Investors expect the White House and Congress to come through in raising the debt ceiling, Lerner added.

“Most of the time we raise the debt ceiling and move on with our lives,” he said.

Judge poised to rule if parents will have a voice in court in Nashville school shooting case

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — A Tennessee judge is poised to rule on Wednesday whether to allow the parents of children killed and those traumatized in a mass shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School to voice their opposition in court to the release of the shooter’s writings.

Davidson County Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea L. Myles said she will issue her decision by the end of Wednesday if she will allow the parents to speak on why they do not want the journals of the school shooter, Audrey Hale, who was killed by police in the March 27 rampage, made public.

“I think that is not something that we in Tennessee, and specifically in Nashville, have had to deal with,” Myles said in court Monday, referring to the massacre that left three children and three adults dead. “So, in a way, we are in unchartered territory. That moment is not lost on me.”

Myles held a status hearing on Monday in which she heard arguments from the attorneys for the parents and the Covenant School, who do not want Hale’s writings ever to be made public. She also heard from lawyers representing news organizations, a national police group and a firearms association that are suing the Nashville Metropolitan Government to get the killer’s journals released, hoping they shed light on a motive for the massacre.

Attorney Eric Osborne — who said he represents 100 families affected by the school shooting, including the parents of three 9-year-old children killed — told Myles that many of the parents want to address the court about their fears that releasing the shooter’s writings will prompt copycat attacks and add additional pain to the children who survived the attack.

Osborne argued it would violate the parent’s rights under the Tennessee Constitution if they were barred from intervening in the release of Hale’s journals.

“Once this document is released …. you can’t un-ring the bell,” Osborne said in court, adding that rejecting the parents’ request to speak in court would be “just a terrible violation of their rights.”

Attorneys for the Covenant School and the Covenant Presbyterian Church also argued they don’t want the journals and other evidence seized in the investigation released because they might contain the school’s safety plan and other documents pertaining to health and social security records of school and church employees.

Osborne said that while many parents are willing to be identified if allowed to intervene in the case, others want to participate under pseudonyms because they are afraid of reprisals if they testify.

Robb Harvey, an attorney who represents The Tennessean newspaper, countered that the parents should not be permitted to intervene, arguing they have no standing in the case because no criminal charges have been filed due to the suspect being shot to death by police.

“As horrible a thing that happened to the parents and the families of the people who were killed, they’re not victims of a crime,” Harvey told Myles. “So, the constitutional provision doesn’t apply to them.”

Harvey added, “I know that their emotions have been just jangled and rattled and disrupted, their family lives have been disrupted, but that doesn’t make them a criminal victim.”

The Nashville Metropolitan Government requested Monday’s hearing after being sued for the release of the documents by the news organizations, the Tennessee Firearms Association Inc. and Clata Renee Brewer, a private investigator for the National Police Association.

Brewer’s attorney, Doug Pierce, suggested in court that the families of those killed and traumatized in the shooting and Covenant School officials don’t want the writings and other evidence released because they are attempting to hide what’s in the documents from the public.

“You do get the distinct impression from what has been filed, I can’t say, but it’s very strong, they all know what is in that document,” Pierce alleged.

Osborne assured Myles that none of the families are privy to what is in the police investigative file.

Laura Fox, an attorney for the Nashville Metropolitan Government, said in court that some of the material seized in the investigation through search warrants and subpoenas, including Hale’s writings, have been turned over to Myles to review in private. Fox invited Myles to come to police headquarters to review the remainder of the evidence.

Fox said the police investigation is still active and more evidence is being collected.

Myles has scheduled a “show cause” hearing for June 8 before she rules on whether to release the documents in the case.

Typhoon Mawar hits Guam with 140 mph winds as potentially ‘catastrophic’ storm

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A powerful typhoon taking aim at Guam could be the strongest tropical cyclone to impact the U.S. island territory in decades.

As of Wednesday 7:50 p.m. local time (5:50 a.m. ET), the eye of Typhoon Mawar was passing over or very near northern Guam with 140 mile per hour winds — equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane. Mawar could make a rare landfall on Guam, which would mark the first time since 1976 that the island was directly hit by a Category 4 typhoon.

An earlier forecast projected Mawar to hit the island as a super typhoon packing winds as strong as 160 mph — equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.

Most of Guam was without power by Wednesday afternoon, with the island’s energy grid providing electricity to only 1,000 of its approximately 52,000 customers due to Mawar’s “severe adverse conditions,” according to the Guam Power Authority.

“We were able to avoid a complete island-wide blackout when the system severed into two grids,” the agency said in a statement. “We are working hard to maintain the last remaining customers through the storm which contributes to quicker recovery after the winds die down later tonight or in the early morning hours.”

The National Weather Service has issued a typhoon warning for Guam, which is the westernmost territory of the United States, located in Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean.

Rainfall on the island could accumulate to as much as 20 inches, while storm surge is forecast to reach as high as 25 feet. Mawar was already producing waves up to 45 feet in the ocean near Guam on Tuesday.

Guam’s Office of Civil Defense advised residents on Tuesday to seek shelter immediately, as Mawar is “expected to make a direct hit or very near passage for Guam.”

“There is a potential of a catastrophic and devastating event for Guam,” the office said in a bulletin.

Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero also urged residents on Tuesday to take cover, as “damaging winds” were expected to start soon.

“Please take all the necessary precautions in an abundance of safety before we feel the full strength of the super typhoon,” Guerrero said in a social media post.

One emergency shelter in northern Guam had already reached capacity, according to the governor.

President Joe Biden has declared an emergency in Guam due to Mawar and ordered federal assistance to support the response to the typhoon.

Mawar could be one of the strongest typhoons to impact Guam since the 1960s — the start of the satellite era.

The most destructive typhoon to hit Guam was Karen in 1962, with 155 mph winds and wind gusts of at least 170 mph, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Most homes on the island were destroyed.

More recently, in 2002, Super Typhoon Pongsona moved near the island with 144 mph winds and gusts up to 173 mph, causing $700 million in damage at the time, according to NOAA.

White House says McCarthy ‘beholden’ to far-right Republicans on debt limit, source says

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The White House is painting House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as talking out of both sides of his mouth amid the debt ceiling standoff, criticizing him for being “beholden” to far-right Republicans while publicly voicing support for a bipartisan deal, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

The White House’s talking points also criticize McCarthy for not agreeing to the White House’s concessions. The Republican congressional leader “claims he wants to negotiate, but today he said the only concession he is willing to make is to prevent default — a basic Constitutional responsibility of his job,” according to the talking points.

President Joe Biden, on the other hand, is willing to compromise, the source said. The talking points state that the Democratic president has offered a “spending freeze which cuts spending by more than $1 trillion over 10 years,” a recall of “significant unspent COVID relief funds” and a “two-year cap on spending.”

The talking points come as the so-called “x-date” draws closer — the June 1 deadline to reach a deal on the federal debt limit and spending, or the U.S. government risks defaulting on its obligations for the first time. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned in a letter to congressional leaders on Monday that it is “highly likely” the national treasury will run out of money in early June.

On Tuesday, McCarthy told a close-door meeting of House Republicans that he and the Biden administration are “nowhere near a deal,” urging members of his caucus to hold firm, sources told ABC News.

Biden to call for end of gun violence ‘epidemic’ a year after Uvalde shooting

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden plans on Wednesday to call on Republicans in Congress to act to end the “epidemic” of gun violence in the United States, the White House said.

The remarks are expected during an afternoon speech marking a year since the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

Nineteen fourth graders and two teachers were killed when a gunman stormed Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022. Seventeen others were injured.

“The president will remember those lost in Uvalde and reiterate his call for Republicans in Congress to act and help stop the epidemic of gun violence that has become the number one killer of kids in America,” a White House official said in the statement.

Biden on the day of the shooting in Uvalde spoke of how he was “sick and tired” of gun violence, saying we “can do so much more.” The shooting came 10 days after a gunman attacked a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people.

“It’s time — for those who obstruct or delay or block the commonsense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget,” he said a year ago at the White House. “We can do so much more. We have to do more.”

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday that the president believes the Uvalde shooting and the Buffalo supermarket shooting were the catalyst for Congress passing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act

“While he’s very, he’s very appreciative of what Congress was able to do, there’s so much more to be done … We need to see Congress do something more, do more,” she told ABC News. “Put forward some commonsense, gun reform. That’s what these families deserve. That’s what they should be able to see.”

Typhoon Mawar set to hit Guam as potentially ‘catastrophic’ storm

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A powerful typhoon is headed toward Guam, which could be the strongest tropical cyclone to impact the island in decades.

Typhoon Mawar could directly hit Guam with winds as strong as 140 mph — equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane. The strong tropical cyclone is expected to strike around noon local time Wednesday, which would be around 10 p.m. ET Tuesday.

This is exceptionally rare to have a direct hit from Category 4 typhoon as the last time the island got hit by such a strong typhoon was in 1976.

Earlier in the day, Super Typhoon Mawar was projected to hit Guam with winds as strong as 160 mph — equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.

A typhoon warning has been issued for the U.S. island territory, located in the western Pacific.

Rainfall could reach as high as 20 inches, and storm surge is forecast to reach as high as 25 feet. The super typhoon is already producing waves up to 45 feet in the ocean near Guam.

Guam’s Office of Civil Defense advised residents on Tuesday to seek shelter immediately, as Mawar is “expected to make a direct hit or very near passage for Guam.”

“There is a potential of a catastrophic and devastating event for Guam,” the office said in a bulletin.

Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero also urged residents on Tuesday to seek shelter immediately as “damaging winds” were expected to start soon.

“Please take all the necessary precautions in an abundance of safety before we feel the full strength of the super typhoon,” she said on social media.

One emergency shelter in northern Guam had already reached capacity, the governor said.

President Joe Biden declared an emergency in Guam due to Mawar and ordered federal assistance to support the response to the typhoon.

A super typhoon is used to connote a tropical cyclone with sustained winds of at least 150 mph.

Mawar could be one of the strongest typhoons to impact Guam since the 1960s — the start of the satellite era.

More recently, in 2002, Super Typhoon Pongsona moved near the island with 144 mph winds and gusts up to 173 mph, causing $700 million in damage at the time, according to NOAA.

Fearing indictment is imminent in classified docs probe, Trump team requests meeting with DOJ

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s legal team has formally requested a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland, amid fears from his attorneys that the coming weeks could bring a possible indictment of Trump regarding his alleged efforts to retain materials after leaving office and to obstruct the government’s attempts to retrieve them.

The letter, though thin on details, presents arguments that Trump should not be charged in the investigation related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

The letter asks Garland for a meeting at his earliest convenience to discuss what the attorneys describe as the “ongoing injustice that is being perpetrated” by special counsel Jack Smith and says that no president has been “baselessly investigated” in such an “unlawful fashion.”

The one-page letter was signed by Trump lawyers John Rowley and James Trusty, and does not outline any specific allegations of wrongdoing by Smith and his team.

The request does not specifically detail what Trump’s legal team wants to discuss with the attorney general. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing associated with his handling of materials bearing classification markings.

It’s not clear whether Trump’s attorneys are acting on any specific knowledge of Smith’s investigation.

Trump posted the letter on his Truth Social account Tuesday night.

A spokesperson for Garland and a spokesperson for the special counsel’s office both declined to comment to ABC News.

The letter from Trump’s attorneys follows more than a year of negotiations between Trump’s team and the government, which resulted in a breakdown of trust that led to the government’s May 2022 subpoena for documents and its subsequent search of Mar-a-Lago last August. Since then, as ABC News has previously reported, the DOJ and Trump’s lawyers have continued to battle over compliance with grand jury subpoenas.

National Archives officials initially asked the Justice Department in early 2022 to investigate Trump’s handling of White House records after the National Archives in January retrieved 15 boxes of records from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that had been improperly taken from the White House in violation of the Presidential Records Act.

The DOJ probe hit a critical point on Aug. 8, 2022, when Mar-a-Lago was searched by FBI agents. Federal investigators seized more than 100 documents with classified markings during the search, according to an unsealed detailed inventory list. From Trump’s office alone, there were 43 empty folders seized with classified banners.

The property inventory list also showed agents gathered more than 11,000 documents or photographs without classification markings, all of which were described as property of the U.S. government.

Since the August search, Trump and his legal team have found additional classified documents and have received additional subpoenas for information that the government believes could still be in Trump’s possession.

As ABC News first reported in March, prosecutors in the special counsel’s office have presented compelling preliminary evidence that Trump knowingly and deliberately misled his own attorneys about his retention of classified material after leaving office, according to sources who described the contents of a sealed filing from a top federal judge.

In a sealed filing from March, Judge Beryl Howell ordered Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran to comply with a grand jury subpoena for testimony over which he had previously asserted attorney-client privilege. Sources said Howell ordered Corcoran to hand over a number of records tied to what she described as Trump’s alleged “criminal scheme,” echoing prosecutors. Those records included handwritten notes, invoices and transcriptions of personal audio recordings.

The meeting request from Trump’s attorneys comes as infighting within Trump’s legal team has spilled into the public eye.

Over the weekend, former Trump lawyer Tim Parlatore — who left Trump’s legal team last week — publicly blasted a current lawyer for Trump, alleging that Boris Epshteyn attempted to interfere with additional searches for classified material at Trump’s properties.

“In my opinion, he was not very honest with us or with the client on certain things. There were certain things like the searches that he had attempted to interfere with,” Parlatore said during an appearance on CNN on Saturday.

Parlatore added that Epshteyn, who has served as somewhat of a liaison between the lawyers, made defending Trump more difficult.

A Trump campaign spokesperson said in a statement that Parlatore’s assertions were “categorically false.”

Teacher who survived Uvalde shooting returns to teaching despite trauma endured

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(UVALDE, Texas) — Former Robb Elementary School teacher Mercedes Salas can still recall the hours leading up to the mass shooting at the Uvalde, Texas school on May 24, 2022, that claimed 21 lives.

That morning, Salas was trying to figure out what to wear for the annual awards ceremony at Robb Elementary School. She was about to wear a layered chain set when she suddenly paused to look at her Catholic Virgen de Guadalupe necklace.

“My hand was going for the other necklace, but something in my head said, ‘No, no, no, no, don’t do that, grab your Virgen de Guadalupe necklace,'” she told ABC News.

Later that day, when Salas, a fourth grade teacher, heard shots from the 18-year-old gunman who went on to kill 19 students and two teachers, she immediately locked down her classroom, guarded her students and told them to pray. For 44 minutes, she remained on her knees and tightly held on to her Virgen de Guadalupe necklace.

“I just prayed over and over, ‘protect my door, shield my wall,'” she said. “My Virgen de Guadalupe—she’s part of my culture, part of me, part of my Catholic upbringing, so why not pray to her?”

As Mercedes prayed, she says she immediately became aware of how close the danger was to her.

“I could smell gun powder coming into my classroom, it was super, super strong,” she said.

Mercedes was in room 106, directly across rooms 111 and 112, where the gunman entered and started firing rounds from an AR-15.

“We heard screaming, and it was the worst screams I have ever heard,” she said, becoming emotional. “Then I didn’t hear any screaming, and my brain is like, ‘Oh my god, he just killed them,’ so I heard them die. And ever since then, I still hear them at night.”

After 44 minutes of waiting for help, Mercedes and her students were finally evacuated from their classroom. Police officers smashed the windows of the room and pulled the kids out one by one. Mercedes was the last person to exit. She sustained injuries to her knees as well as numerous cuts all over her body from the broken glass.

“I didn’t feel the glass cutting me, I guess it was my adrenaline going,” she said. “The officer yelled at me and he said, ‘Ma’am, you have to get out now,’ And I understand now his sense of urgency because there are gunshots going off, but at that moment I wasn’t worrying about a gunshot hitting me, I was worried about making sure all my kids were out.”

Mercedes says she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and received physical therapy for the injuries to her knees. Recently, she says worker’s compensation has denied her additional treatment for her knees, which she is fighting.

Despite these challenges, the decision to return to teaching was not difficult for Mercedes. She now teaches fourth grade at Uvalde Elementary School.

“I felt that if I am not there, who will be there to protect the children,” she said.

On the first day of class after the tragedy, Mercedes said students and parents were on edge. She tried her best to help them feel safe.

“One of the kiddos was very nervous and it was because mom had shared in ‘Meet the Teacher’ that she didn’t want to send her child to school because she was afraid it was going happen again,” she said.

There were also moments during the school year when she would break down after class ended at 3:15 p.m. and she was alone.

“Sometimes it’s hard—it’s 3:30 p.m. and I cry just for no reason, or it’s 3:30 p.m. and I start smelling gunpowder at school, so I have to remind myself, ‘You’re not at Robb, you’re at a new school,’ so it has not been the easiest times, but I am there for my kids,” Mercedes said.

When Mercedes finally received some items back from her former Robb classroom, she was surprised by one object in particular: a plant previously gifted to her by fellow teacher Arnie Reyes, the sole survivor of room 111. Mercedes used to keep the plant by the window in her class, and she remembered that the plant had fallen and crashed on the ground during the breach.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my plant’s gonna die,'” she said.

But her plant wasn’t dead when she got it back, as it still had a single leaf on it. The plant became more significant to her than ever before.

“That plant was clinging on to life, and it did, so I made that connection to the plant, I have to cling on. If the plant can do it, I most certainly can do it,” she said. “It signifies me somehow, we’re clinging on.”

Man accused of stabbing woman on hiking trail pleads not guilty to murder

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(PHOENIX) — A man accused of fatally stabbing a woman hiking on a desert trail in Phoenix last month in an apparently random attack has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

Zion William Teasley, 22, appeared in court for an arraignment hearing Tuesday following his indictment by a Maricopa County grand jury on one count of first-degree murder for the death of Lauren Heike.

The judge entered a plea of not guilty on his behalf for the murder charge.

Teasley’s next court appearance is scheduled for July 10, with the trial expected to begin in mid-January 2024. He is currently being held in the Maricopa County Jail on $1 million bond.

Heike, 29, was found dead in a desert area the morning of April 29 — about 24 hours after the attack is believed to have occurred, according to Phoenix police.

Phoenix police were on their way to a person-down call on the hiking trail that day when they also got a call from Heike’s friend saying she did not show up for work that day and that it was unusual, according to the probable cause document.

A medical examiner determined Heike had 15 stab wounds on her upper body, and there were defensive wounds on her hands and forearms, according to the probable cause document.

Phoenix police Lt. James Hester told reporters earlier this month following Teasley’s arrest that he believes the attack was random, but added that police “have not concluded our investigation into that.”

Teasley was allegedly captured in surveillance footage running away from the scene, police said.

DNA from Heike’s shoe at the crime scene was preliminarily matched to Teasley, according to the probable cause document. A search warrant for cell carrier data showed him in the area at the time of the murder, and the suspect captured in the surveillance footage was wearing clothing Teasley had stolen from his previous employer, according to the document.

Teasley is already on probation; he had been convicted of robbery, armed robbery and disorderly conduct in another case and was released from prison in November, prosecutors said.

A case involving Teasley’s probation is also ongoing. The court entered a denial of violation of probation on his behalf in that case on Tuesday.

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