(MOSCOW, Idaho) — The families of two of the victims in the University of Idaho killings last fall have filed notice reserving their right to sue the city of Moscow, according to documents filed with the city.
The families of slain students Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Madison Mogen, 21, may seek damages against the city for the murders of their daughters, according to the notices, which were dated May 3 and May 11, respectively, and were obtained by ABC News.
The notices do not specify what kind of claim the families may make. They say that potential dollar figures for damages are “undetermined at this time.”
No lawsuit has yet been filed, but the claims protect the families’ rights to sue within two years, Shanon Gray, an attorney representing the Goncalves and Mogen families, told ABC News.
“Filing a tort claims notice is really just a safeguard,” Gray said. “It’s a safeguard to protect the interests of the families, the victims and really the whole community around, because if something goes wrong, or was done improperly, then someone is held accountable for that.”
Gray said he had also filed tort claims notices with Washington State as well as Idaho State.
“Those aren’t meant to do anything other than protect the interests of the families and the victims moving forward,” Gray said.
When reached Monday evening, Moscow Mayor Art Bettge had no comment on the matter.
Goncalves and Mogen were among four students at the university, along with Xana Kernodle, 20, and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, who were found stabbed to death at their off-campus house on Nov. 13 by officers responding at the scene. After a more than six-week hunt, police zeroed in on a suspect: Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University.
Kohberger was arrested on Dec. 30 in Pennsylvania, after driving cross-country to spend the holidays at his family home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania. On Wednesday, a grand jury returned a multi-count indictment against Kohberger, including four counts of murder in the first degree.
Kohberger stood silent at his arraignment Monday. Second District Judge John Judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
Early on in the investigation, Gray and the Goncalves families had expressed frustration with the pace of the investigation and what they described as lack of transparency.
In a mid-December interview on NBC, Gray questioned whether the local police were “capable” of handling the quadruple homicide investigation and that they had done a “poor job” of communicating information to the family.
“If they are in over their heads, then acknowledge that and turn the investigation over to someone who is more versed in handling these types of matters,” Gray said.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump will appear, virtually, in a Manhattan, New York court Tuesday so a judge can ensure he understands the terms of a protective order imposed in the criminal case against him.
Trump, who last month pleaded not guilty in a New York City courtroom to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment, is prohibited from sharing on social media any evidence turned over by the Manhattan district attorney during discovery.
The protective order was requested by prosecutors after Trump criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, presiding Judge Juan Merchan and others associated with the criminal case.
Merchan imposed the protective order over the evidence, but stopped short of imposing a gag order, saying he wanted to give Trump the freedom to speak about the case as he campaigns for president.
Prosecutors sought Tuesday’s hearing for the judge to read Trump the terms of the order and affirm Trump’s understanding of it.
The former president is accused of concealing the true nature of reimbursement payments that he made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, after Cohen paid $130,000 to adult film Stormy Daniels in the closing weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign so she would keep quiet about a long-denied affair with Trump.
(WASHINGTON) — The driver of a rented box truck that collided with a security barrier near the White House on Monday was arrested and charged, law enforcement officials said.
The U-Haul truck crashed at about 10 p.m. on the north side of Lafayette Square near the White House, officials said.
An adult male suspect, who has not been publicly identified, was charged with five counts, including assault with a dangerous weapon, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, trespassing and destruction of federal property, U.S. Park Police said.
He was also charged with threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict harm on a president, vice president or their families, police said.
There were no injuries to any Secret Service or White House personnel, Anthony Gugliemi, a spokesperson for the Secret Service, said in a statement.
A “preliminary investigation reveals the driver may have intentionally struck” the barrier, he said.
The truck was cleared for potential explosives, a law enforcement official said.
Park Police confirmed to ABC News that the investigation is still ongoing.
(NEW YORK) — Critics of Bud Light burned empty beer boxes and fired bullets at cans as part of an anti-trans backlash against the brand that erupted early last month. Since then, the anger has grown.
Sales of Bud Light have recorded declines for six consecutive weeks after a product endorsement from Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer, set off ire among many conservatives.
Consumer boycotts typically fizzle but this one has expanded for an array of reasons: a hot-button political controversy over a product with ample alternatives, outcry from political figures and celebrities and amplification on social media, experts told ABC News.
The boycott grew even larger, meanwhile, after the initial response from the company was perceived as conciliatory by some LGBTQ advocates, prompting a wave of frustration on the left, the experts added.
“Generally, boycotts get called and have very little effect,” Gerald Davis, a professor of organizational behavior at the Michigan University Graduate School of Business. “For now, everybody is mad.”
Sales of Bud Light fell nearly 25% over the week ending on May 13 compared to the same period a year ago, according to data from Bump Williams Consulting and Nielsen NIQ obtained by ABC News.
The most recent decline showed a deepening of losses after a drop of some 23% the week prior compared to a year ago and a roughly 7% year-over-year drop for the week ending on April 9, soon after the boycott began, the data showed.
Meanwhile, sales of rival beers have surged. Sales of Coors Light jumped almost 23% over the week ending on May 13 compared to a year ago; while sales of Miller Lite climbed 21% over that period, the data showed.
“In the beer world, there are thousands of other options readily available at similar price points,” Anson Frericks, a former Anheuser-Busch executive, told ABC News. “Every grocery store and bar usually has the other options.”
In all, the stock price for Anheuser-Busch InBev, the maker of Bud Light, has fallen about 11% since Mulvaney posted the brief Instagram endorsement video that sparked the backlash.
Anheuser-Busch InBev declined to respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
In response to the initial boycott, Anheuser-Busch InBev posted a statement from CEO Brendan Whitworth on its website.
“We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people,” Whitworth said. “We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”
The company also placed two executives who oversaw the endorsement of Mulvaney’s Instagram post on leave, the Wall Street Journal reported last month.
The response drew sharp criticism from some LGBTQ advocates who considered it a capitulation to the backlash. The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, suspended the company’s Corporate Equality Index score, USA Today reported on Thursday. Previously, the company scored 100, the top rating.
“More and more people on the left are upset that the company is not supporting these progressive values in a more outspoken way,” Frericks said.
The scale and longevity of the backlash also underscore the intensity of anti-trans sentiment among conservatives, experts said.
As of last week, more than 520 anti-LGBTQ bills had been introduced in state legislatures, including over 220 bills specifically targeting transgender and non-binary people, the Human Rights Campaign found.
Far-right House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. last month reposted a video to her 700,000 followers that sharply criticized Bud Light. Celebrities like Kid Rock and Ted Nugent had previously voiced similar messages.
“This anti-woke agenda and the idea of trans rights broadly has become a wedge issue,” Maurice Schweitzer, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business who studies consumer movements, told ABC News. “It has gained and attracted a great deal of attention.”
Anheuser-Busch InBev stands in a difficult position as it faces frustration on both sides of the political spectrum, said Davis, of Michigan University.
“A dynamic has been set in motion that’s going to be very complicated for the company to navigate,” Davis said. “What stance could they take now that would make one side or the other say, ‘Oh, OK’?”
(NEW YORK) — A new advisory from the U.S. surgeon general warns of an urgent public health issue regarding social media usage and youth mental health.
In the new advisory, released Tuesday, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy calls for more research to determine the extent of mental health impacts on young people, including the type of content generating the most harm, societal factors that could protect youth and ways in which social media can be beneficial.
“To date the burden of protecting youth has fallen predominantly on children, adolescents and their families,” Murthy writes. “The entire burden of mitigating the risk of harm of social media cannot be placed on the shoulders of children and parents.”
Murthy claims in the advisory that technology companies’ “lack of transparency” has created “barriers to understanding the full scope and scale of the impact of social media on mental health and well-being.”
He calls on social media companies to prioritize safety and privacy in their product designs and ensure minimum age requirements are enforced.
Most social media platforms have a minimum user age of 13, which Murthy says he believes is “too early” for kids to be on social media, describing the age as a “time when kids are developing their identity, their sense of self.”
Murthy says the ages of 10 to 19 are a sensitive time, when youth identities are forming, leaving them susceptible to social pressure and peer opinion.
The advisory also outlines how policymakers can enact change in three ways: creating policies limiting access to potentially harmful content, developing curricula about digital and media literacy in schools, and increasing funding for related research.
Murthy also calls on parents to model responsible social media behavior, in addition to the changes recommended for policymakers and social media companies.
He says parents should create family media plans, establish tech-free zones and encourage children to foster in-person friendships.
The advisory comes just weeks after the American Psychological Association issued sweeping recommendations intended to help teenagers use social media safely.
Psychologists say that adolescent brain development starts around age 10 and continues through early adulthood. The APA cautions that sites that use “like” buttons and artificial intelligence to encourage excessive scrolling “may be dangerous for developing brains” and recommends limiting social media use on these types of platforms through phone settings.
Research shows frequent social media use may be associated with distinct changes in the developing brain, including in areas necessary for emotional learning, regulation and impulse control.
Mitchell Prinstein, Ph.D., chief science officer of the APA, told ABC News that as it stands now, the time in life that kids’ brains develop the most is also when they are most exposed to social media.
“The time when most kids get access to social media is actually one of the most sensitive periods of neural development in our lifetimes,” he said.
On average, teens report using social media for 3.5 hours a day, with many spending more than seven hours a day on these platforms, according to Tuesday’s surgeon general’s advisory.
Time is a key component when it comes to assessing social media and mental health risks, as teens who spend more than three hours a day on social media may unknowingly double their risk of poor mental health outcomes, according to the advisory.
Dr. Colette Poole-Boykin, a child psychiatrist and assistant professor at Yale University, told ABC News that the reality may be worse than data shows because children may underestimate the time they report spending on social media.
“Children have difficulty estimating how much time they spend on social media,” she said. “When this happens, it is almost always that they spend far too much unrestricted time on their devices.”
Poole-Boykin noted that cyberbullying can also be an issue for teens on social media, saying, “I have treated multiple patients for mood disorders and concern for suicidality due to bullying and the sharing of intimate information on social media.”
According to the surgeon general’s advisory, 75% of teens say social media sites are only doing a fair to poor job of addressing the issues of cyberbullying and online harassment.
While social media has some benefits, particularly for minority youth who find community, identity-affirming content and other social support online, experts say there is still not enough evidence to say social media is safe for children and teens.
Dr. Neha Chaudhary, child and adolescent psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, said she has seen benefits for teens when working in “moderated groups.”
“There’s a power in feeling less alone,” she said, describing “moderated groups” as places where “people can come together to validate one another, share advice and support, and uplift one another, especially if they are facing a common challenge.”
(ROCKLIN, Calif.) — A good Samaritan who stopped his car to help a family of ducks cross a road in California was struck and killed by a teenage driver, police say.
The incident occurred on Thursday in Rocklin, California — approximately, 25 miles northeast of Sacramento — when the male driver parked his car at the intersection of Park Drive and Stanford Ranch Boulevard when he saw a family of ducks attempting to cross the busy streets, according to a statement from the Rocklin Police Department.
But when the man, identified as 41-year-old Casey Rivara by ABC News’ Sacramento affiliate KXTV, got out and tried to shepherd the ducks across the road, a teenage driver who was headed eastbound on Stanford Ranch Boulevard ended up hitting the man as he attempted his good deed.
“This juvenile driver struck the pedestrian who was in the roadway,” said the Rocklin Police Department. “The driver remained at the scene of the collision. Emergency first responders arrived to assist, however the man died at the scene.”
The Major Accident Investigation Team was activated and responded to the area following the collision and police say the intersection was closed for nearly six hours while authorities conducted their investigation which last until about 2 a.m. on Friday morning when the road was reopened.
“Both lives were ruined. His and the person who hit him, so I think it’s terrible,” community member Diane Myerson told KXTV. “He was doing something nice and he ended up dying for it. Nobody thinks that they get out to help an animal or a person that they’re going to be killed”
The teenage driver was not arrested and the incident is still under investigation, police say.
Rivara, who was an employee at Maria Montessori Charter Academy, was reportedly driving his children home after swim practice when he saw the mother duck and ducklings struggling to cross the busy intersection, according to KXTV.
“We would like to extend our condolences to all involved in this tragic event,” said the Rocklin Police Department.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact the Rocklin Police Department.
(NEW YORK) — A man injured in a deadly Detroit gas station shooting has filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil alleging a clerk locked him and two other patrons in the station’s convenience store with the gunman who shot them.
Anthony Bowden’s lawsuit accuses the ExxonMobil Corp. and the gas station franchise owner, SMM Investment Inc., of multiple counts of negligence stemming from the shooting in March in which a patron was killed, and he and another customer were wounded.
“Locking three innocent people inside of a building with a person threatening to shoot them over $4 shows a complete disregard for human life over profit,” Bowden’s attorney, James Harrington of the Fieger Law firm, said in a statement. “This store clerk was obviously trained to lock the door and protect the gas station’s assets at all costs.”
The ExxonMobil Corp. did not respond to a request from ABC News for comment. Owners of SMM Investment Inc. could not be reached for comment.
The shooting unfolded around 3 a.m. on March 6 at an ExxonMobil gas station in northwest Detroit, where the 60-year-old Bowden stopped while on his way to work to use an ATM machine.
Bowden, according to the lawsuit filed on May 16 in Wayne County Circuit Court, claims he was inside the gas station convenience store and overheard the 22-year-old clerk, Al-Hassan Aiyash, arguing with a customer over his credit card being declined when he attempted to pay for $4 worth of merchandise.
As the argument escalated, the customer, identified by police as 27-year-old Samuel McCray, allegedly threatened to walk out of the store with the unpurchased items, according to the lawsuit. Aiyash, who was in a bullet-proof vestibule, locked the front door with a remote security switch allegedly to prevent McCray from leaving while he called the police, the lawsuit contends.
Bowden further claims that he overheard McCray allegedly telling the clerk, “If you don’t let me leave, I’m going to start shooting,” according to the lawsuit.
“The gas station employee did not unlock the door and continued to argue with the gunman,” the lawsuit contends.
Bowden claims he attempted to escape the store, but could not because the only exit door was locked and the clerk allegedly ignored his screams to unlock the door, the lawsuit alleges.
“The alleged gunman made good on his promise and unleashed rounds of bullets into the innocent customers, killing one, and seriously injuring two others,” the lawsuit contends.
The clerk unlocked the door “only after the hail of bullets,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit contends eight minutes elapsed between the time the clerk locked the gas station door, trapping the customers inside with the gunman, and when the door was unlocked.
Killed in the shooting was 37-year-old Gregory Karlos Fortner-Kelly of Detroit, according to the Detroit Police Department. Bowden and another patron were wounded in the incident.
Bowden was shot three times, according to the lawsuit.
McCray fled the gas station store when the door was unlocked and was arrested two days later, according to the Detroit Police Department. He was charged with first-degree murder, two counts of assault with intent to murder and three counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office. He pleaded not guilty to the charges during his arraignment on May 10.
On Thursday, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced that the gas station clerk, Aiyash, was arrested on a charge of felony involuntary manslaughter stemming from the shooting. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Friday.
“The allegations of the defendant locking the door of the store and not heeding the pleas of the men to be released led to tragic consequences in this case,” Worthy said in a statement.
Aiyash’s attorney, Jamil Khuja, called the case against his client “a reach.”
(NEW YORK) — An entrepreneur accused of grossly exaggerating the value of her college financial planning startup, ahead of its sale to JPMorgan Chase, pleaded not guilty to federal fraud charges on Monday in Manhattan, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office told ABC News.
Charlie Javice, 31, who once made the prestigious Forbes “30 Under 30” list of “big money” entrepreneurs, sold her now defunct tech startup to the bank in 2021 for $175 million — millions of dollars more than the company was worth, federal prosecutors said last month after Javice was arrested.
She was indicted on May 18 on securities fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy charges.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said last month following Javice’s arrest that this should be a warning to “entrepreneurs who lie to advance their businesses [and] that their lies will catch up to them.”
Her spokesperson denied the allegations. Her lawyer, Alex Spiro, could not be reached for comment.
JPMorgan Chase began talks with Javice in 2021 about acquiring her startup, named Frank, which promised to simplify the financial aid process for college applicants.
Representatives for the financial institution were intrigued by its model: Frank’s software would allow students to apply for federal financial aid in under seven minutes, according to company documents cited in the complaint. With Javice’s technology, the complicated FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) process, would be streamlined. Once the form had been complete, it would only take a click, the company boasted.
Javice told the bank ahead of the deal that about four million people had already created an account with Frank. But the startup had far fewer users, argued prosecutors, who said Frank had less than 300,000 accounts at the time.
Before JPMorgan Chase agreed to purchase Frank, the bank requested data to verify its number of users. It was then that Javice turned to her director of engineering and asked him to fabricate a data set, prosecutors said.
When he declined, she hired outside help from a data scientist to create a spreadsheet with about four million rows — one to represent each account, prosecutors said. The rows included the names and emails of those who the company claimed had signed up.
JPMorgan Chase went ahead with the acquisition, paying Javice $21 million for her equity stake in Frank — and $175 million in total. Following the transaction, Javice was retained to work at JPMorgan Chase for another $20 million.
During her tenure at the company, prosecutors say Javice successfully purchased another data set of information but this time containing names of real students. But when JPMorgan Chase sought to launch a marketing campaign to those who they believed to have signed up for Frank, they found some data points missing, prosecutors said.
In Nov. 2022, following an internal investigation, Javice was fired by the company. In April, she was arrested.
Javice’s plea comes just a week before fellow startup founder Elizabeth Holmes, 39, will report to prison to serve an over 11-year sentence. Holmes was convicted in 2022 for defrauding investors about her blood testing technology, which she said could run any test with a single drop of blood.
Javice, who is out on $2 million bail, is scheduled to have her next court appearance on June 6.
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy left a White House meeting with President Joe Biden on Monday saying he was optimistic about progress toward a deal on the nation’s debt ceiling — but “philosophical differences” with Democrats remained, as the clock continues to tick down toward an unprecedented default.
“I think the tone tonight was better than any other time,” McCarthy said. “We still will have some philosophical differences, but I felt it was productive in that manner.”
“We don’t have an agreement yet, but I did feel the discussion was productive in areas that we have differences of opinion,” he said.
Negotiators for the president and the speaker will keep working toward a deal, McCarthy said, and he expects he’ll speak with Biden daily.
He said he had no additional in-person meetings scheduled with the president.
“We’ve had tough meetings, we’ve had difficult meetings. This meeting was productive,” North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, one of the Republican negotiators, said.
But neither McCarthy and McHenry would shed much light on where they’d made progress, which issues they’d worked on or what sticking points still need to be addressed — using only broad descriptions of the honesty and professionalism in the room.
Major disagreements so far have been on the scope of any spending cuts or freezes and the possibility of new taxes in a debt deal.
After speaking with Biden, McCarthy again threw cold water on the idea of a short-term extension of the federal government’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit, saying he didn’t think it “benefits anybody.”
At a press conference after seeing the president, McCarthy said, “We literally talked about where we were having disagreements and ideas. So to me that’s productive. Not progress, but productive.”
The speaker told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott that he sees a path where a potential “framework” could ultimately be agreed to but added, “You just got to have people who are willing to get to that point.”
Among the GOP asks are getting back unused COVID-19 relief funds, major government spending cuts, work requirements for some recipients of federal aid programs and changes to permitting for new energy projects.
Biden initially demanded a “clean” raise to the debt ceiling without preconditions, as has happened multiple times in the past. But he has since reversed himself and signaled some openness to the GOP position while pushing back on the size of any cuts and pushing for new government revenues.
McCarthy and other Republicans have repeatedly ruled out taxes as part of any deal. McCarthy also opposes defense spending cuts and any changes to immigration policy.
He told reporters earlier Monday that they would need a deal by “this week” in order for it to pass the House and Senate before the June 1 “X-date” when Treasury Secretary Jane Yellen has said the U.S. could default and be unable to pay all of its bills — likely upending the domestic and international markets.
In a brief statement Monday night, Biden echoed McCarthy’s assessment of their sit-down.
“I just concluded a productive meeting with Speaker McCarthy about the need to prevent default and avoid a catastrophe for our economy,” he said. “We reiterated once again that default is off the table and the only way to move forward is in good faith toward a bipartisan agreement.”
Ahead of their White House meeting, Biden had said that “we’re optimistic we may be able to make some progress because we both agree that default is not really on the table. We got to get something done here.”
McCarthy, too, agreed.
“We both agree that we need to change trajectory — that our debt is too large,” McCarthy told reporters in the Oval Office. “I think at the end of the day, we could find common ground, make our economy stronger, take care of this debt but, more importantly, get this government moving again to [curb] inflation.”
That tone of cooperation is at odds with comments elsewhere, as Republicans have accused the Biden administration of slow-walking talks to avoid cutting back on government bloat while Democrats said the GOP was essentially holding the entire economy hostage to enforce extreme positions rather than raise the debt ceiling without strings.
Speaking with reporters on the Capitol steps Monday night, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sought to paint Republicans as having not made serious concessions so far in the debt ceiling negotiations.
“The president himself continued to be extremely reasonable in the face of unreasonable demands that the extreme MAGA Republicans continue to make,” Jeffries said.
Yellen had warned Sunday that June 1 is a “hard deadline” for raising the debt limit, and the possibility of making it to mid-June without default is “quite low.”
On the timeline for enacting legislation, McCarthy said Monday before going to the White House that “we’re going to need a couple of days to write it and to make sure that everyone’s able to read it.”
He pointed to a concession he made to become speaker, going back to a previous rule that requires House members get 72 hours to review legislation before voting on it.
The short timeline makes it “more difficult,” he said, but added, “I think this will make it all happen.”
Another looming concern as negotiations continue is whether McCarthy, if a deal is reached, will have the votes to pass it in the House.
When asked Monday if he can count on far-right House Republicans to vote for a debt ceiling deal or if he’ll need to get support from Democrats, McCarthy demurred.
“I think anytime you come to an agreement that you negotiate with the president, Democrats and Republicans are both going to vote for it,” he said.
The House Freedom Caucus, which boasts dozens of Republican hardliners, has called for talks with the Biden administration to stop and instead for the focus to be on getting the Limit, Save, Grow Act through the Senate — a bill that would deeply cut spending in exchange a one-year debt limit increase deemed a nonstarter by Democrats.
Their opposition means McCarthy would possibly need a substantial number of Democratic votes to pass a debt limit deal. Several progressives have warned of backlash if Biden concedes too much ground to Republicans, and are calling for him to use the 14th Amendment to act unilaterally on the issue.
Before meeting with Biden, McCarthy continued to criticize Democrats’ spending as he entered the Capitol, declining to say if there had been any movement with the White House.
“The underlying issue here is the Democrats, since they took the majority, have been addicted to spending and that’s going to stop. We’re going to spend less than we spent last year,” McCarthy said.
He also took the opportunity to slam Biden.
“Managing a crisis in the last deadline is the worst way to handle this. That’s why Republicans took action,” he said.
Biden and McCarthy previously spoke on Sunday after negotiations stalled over the weekend, primarily over the issue of spending and the length of budget caps.
In the Oval Office later on Monday, Biden was asked whether the way to solve the impasse was through “overall spending” caps.
“Not alone, not that alone,” he answered.
ABC News’ Rachel Scott has reported that Republicans rejected an offer from the White House that offered some cuts to military and domestic spending, including funds related to housing, education and scientific research.
Biden’s call for tax increases to also be included in a deal to raise the debt ceiling — “so people start paying their fair share,” he said Sunday — has been dismissed by the GOP.
Rep. Jodey Arrington, chairman of the House Budget Committee, told ABC’s This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz on Sunday that revenue increases were “not on the table for discussion.”
(UVALDE, Texas) — Plans are moving forward to demolish the site of the school shooting last year in Uvalde, Texas, officials said Monday.
The leaders of the small Texas community also said they’re close to finalizing an agreement that would allow city investigators access to police records to determine whether or not any law enforcement officers should be fired or disciplined for the failed response to the shooting on May 24, 2022, at Robb Elementary.
“We don’t have all the answers,” Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said. “For that, I apologize.”
McLaughlin made his comments during a news conference that kicked off a week of commemorations to mark one year since the massacre. The site of the second-deadliest school shooting in American history took place at Robb Elementary, where 19 children and two teachers were killed.
The city manager, Vince DiPiazza, said the city’s leadership wants to conduct its investigation through proper channels, emphasizing that “we don’t want any backtracking. We don’t want any do-overs.”
“The city has been pushing; [the city] has not had access to the material but has reached an agreement with the judge to look over both parties,” DiPiazza said.
ABC News and other media outlets have broadcast and published evidence and recordings obtained through the criminal investigation being conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The city, however, has yet to be given access to the records, which, it has long argued, it needs in order to properly investigate police actions.
The final release to clear the way for the school’s demolition needs to come from District Attorney Christina Mitchell, according to interim schools Superintendent Gary Patterson. The school board trustees decided in early June 2022 to demolish the elementary school, yet plans have yet to be announced. At the news conference Monday, Patterson said he hopes the process can move forward by this summer.
The district attorney’s office did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
“These families have had nothing but pure hell for a year,” McLaughlin said. “I wish I had a playbook.”
The mayor asked the community and media to show compassion and privacy for the families. For the last two weeks, families of some of the victims visited the school and walked the building and property where their children took their last breaths, as promised months ago by the school district.
Some families of victims say they want the school demolished, including Jerry Mata, who lost his 10-year-old daughter Tess.
A new elementary school, yet to be named, is scheduled to open by fall 2024. More than 75% of the $60 million has been raised for school construction, according to the Uvalde CISD Moving Forward Foundation. The foundation says it continues to raise funds.
The mayor said that amid the continued grief, “together we will move forward.”
Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.
