(UVALDE, Texas) — The Uvalde school board on Wednesday unanimously approved the hiring of an interim school district chief of police, Josh Gutierrez, to fill the gap left after the August ousting of the then-chief of police, Pete Arredondo.

“This is our first step in taking to rebuild our school district police force with baby steps, with very careful consideration of who comes into the department — people with integrity and professionalism,” said Uvalde Interim Superintendent Gary Patterson, during his first school board meeting in his new role.

Since Oct. 7, the entire district police force present during the May 24 massacre that saw 19 children and two teachers killed has been on suspension. Gutierrez will start in his new role Thursday.

Gutierrez most recently served as the director of Bexar County Learning Center, a school located inside a juvenile correction center in San Antonio.

Patterson said he has known Gutierrez for more than a decade and has worked with him in previous school districts. In addition to being a police officer, Gutierrez has served in several instructional and administrative roles in various Texas schools.

Gutierrez declined to answer questions after his approval.

Patterson also revealed that the Uvalde school district will forge a partnership with East Central School District because it has been declared an official certified training site for active shooter training, emergency operations training, school resource officer training, and gun and rifle training.

“We will have a close working relationship with them so we can get the training right away,” Patterson said about the new police force.

Additionally, the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) contributed a blueprint to Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District — written by retired and active police chiefs around the state — on how to build a police force for a school.

“My observation as an outsider is that many times we’ve seen this room filled with a lack of trust, anger and frustration,” Patterson said at the start of the meeting. “My hope is that we can all work to make that better.”

The theme of rebuilding lasted throughout the school board meeting Wednesday.

The board also unanimously approved a plan to build a new $50 million school two miles from the site of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, ensuring the demolition of the building where 21 lives were taken.

The new building concept, which was first presented to the community on Monday, plans to break ground next summer, opening its doors to hundreds of elementary school students in the fall of 2024.

The board approved the motion for site selection of the new elementary school, as well as the spaces and conceptual design.

The plan was one that involved dozens of Uvaldeans. Since mid-August, a community advisory committee has met six times to discuss the building, what it should look like and who it should serve. Members traveled to other communities to survey the options. The proposed concept derived from their discussions, said Natalia Arias, co-chair of the committee.

“With this evening’s approval of the site and conceptual design by the UCISD school board, we now move to the schematic design phase of the project,” Tim Miller, executive director of the Uvalde CISD Moving Forward Foundation, said.

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(CHICAGO) — An 8-year-old boy was not properly harnessed to a safety rope when he fell 24 feet off a climbing wall at Chicago’s Navy Pier this summer, suffering severe injuries, his parents allege in a new lawsuit.

Erin and Gideon Brewer took their three children to Navy Pier on July 27 while visiting the city from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

When their son George went up the climbing wall, he made it to the top before plunging 24 feet to the ground, according to the family. The fall was caught on camera by his mother, who said she was unaware he was not properly harnessed.

“It felt like a nightmare,” his mother, Erin Brewer, said during a press briefing Wednesday.

There was no cushion at the bottom of the climbing wall when George slammed into the concrete, his family said. As a result, he suffered “severe injuries” all over his body and has undergone multiple surgeries, according to the complaint.

“We thought he was dead when he fell,” his father, Gideon Brewer, told reporters. “His little brothers saw him too, saw the whole thing, and were asking us, ‘Is George dead? Is George dead?'”

As a result of the fall, George broke his tibia, pelvis and chin, shattered his femur, had a concussion and sustained damage to his growth plate, Erin Brewer said.

“Hearing your child asking if he’s going to die. I mean, he’s an 8-year-old boy,” Erin Brewer said. “It’s like his innocence was taken from him.”

George has needed four surgeries so far, and has another surgery scheduled for the end of January, his parents said. Due to the severity of his injuries, he had to start the school year in a wheelchair, his mother said.

“It’s infuriating because this was 100% preventable. This should never have happened ever,” Erin Brewer said.

A spokesperson for Navy Pier said they have not seen the lawsuit.

“It is our standard practice not to comment on litigation,” the spokesperson said.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Circuit Court of Cook County on George’s behalf, alleges negligence and willful and wanton conduct by the defendants, including the two operators of the climb wall. The family is suing for George’s medical and hospital expenses, among other damages.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Environmental Protection Agency announced last month that the water in Jackson, Mississippi, is now safe to drink, though agency administrator Michael Regan admits that there is still a lot of work to be done.

“The state and the city, the federal government, we’re all at the table with our sleeves rolled up looking for and identifying this path forward,” he told ABC News’ GMA3.

Regan joined GMA3 to talk about his visit to Jackson, his so-called “Journey to Justice” tour across the country and what climate action we can expect from the U.S. moving forward.

In addition to Jackson, Regan has also recently traveled to Egypt to participate in the COP27 conference on climate change, where the U.S. announced it would make significant efforts to curb methane emissions.

GMA3: Joining us now from Jackson, Mississippi, is the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Michael Regan. Thank you so much for being with us. I know you’ve made several trips down there to Jackson. I believe this is your fourth trip. What is the latest information you can share about what’s happening there on the ground?

REGAN: Well, good afternoon and thank you for having me, Amy. You know, this is my fourth trip, and it was a great trip.

The purpose for being there was to host a roundtable, engaged with community members and give them an update on the fact that the state, the federal government and the city are at the table negotiating some near-term solutions that hopefully will be overseen by a federal court if we reach an agreement.

So we are optimistic about moving forward to secure some longer term stability for the drinking water here in Jackson.

GMA3: And I know you’ve been meeting with residents there in Jackson. You’ve been hearing their personal stories about how this has impacted their lives. Can you share some of them with us?

REGAN: Well, I was, you know, my second visit with Miss Ali Anderson yesterday. She invited me back to her home. She’s 98 years old, a lifelong resident of Jackson. And she just walked me through day in and day out what it’s like for her to try to lift these crates of bottled water and how to use bottled water to cook and brush your teeth.

And, you know, she’s extremely frustrated but very optimistic. And she gave me some really sage advice two trips ago, and that is ignore the politics on the ground and focus on solutions. And so that’s why I convened the governor and the mayor and the entire Mississippi delegation to think about how do we chart a path forward. And that’s what we’ve been doing.

GMA3: Is there a permanent solution available or known at this point?

REGAN: You know, we have a lot of options that are on the table. We are in confidential negotiations about how to continue that process. So I can’t go into too many details. But what I can say is I’m optimistic about the path that we’re charting forward and the state and the city, the federal government, we’re all at the table with our sleeves rolled up looking for and identifying this path forward.

GMA3: All right. And Michael, I know you’ve been traveling from Mississippi. You were in Egypt, I believe, just last week for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. And the U.S. made a big announcement regarding methane emissions. Tell us what that announcement was, how it affects all of us here in this country and why this is such a big deal.

REGAN: Well, you know, I was proud that the president announced a number of actions that we’re taking to combat methane, which is a really powerful greenhouse gas pollutant. And the EPA announced that, you know, we’re going to push out supplemental regulation, basically a technology standard that gives us the ability to reduce 87% of the methane coming out of existing facilities and new facilities by 2030.

This is a really big deal because it’s allowing us to leverage technology to reduce this powerful pollutant while also reducing the loss of the gas product itself. And so we partner with industry, we partner with the environmental community, you know, unions, environmental justice community. This is a win-win not only for technology and for reducing pollution, but also for public health. And we’re really excited about that announcement that the president made in Egypt.

GM3: And what is the hope that this will have in terms of impact on the environment, on climate change, by making this big change?

REGAN: Well, you know, the goal worldwide is for us to keep global warming from increasing 1.5 degrees Celsius. We believe that this is a significant step forward to keep us on that path. You know, we have this saying keep 1.5 alive globally and the United States is doing its part. Again, methane is a very powerful pollutant. President Biden said from day one that America was back on the international stage and that we would lead. And he is walking the world through that vision with action and some of the actions that are being taken like this methane proposal. So we’re playing our part and we’re doing it well.

GMA3: I mentioned you’ve been traveling. You actually have legitimately been on a tour. You call it the ‘Journey to Justice’ tour going across the country. Tell us what the tour is and what you’ve learned and what the EPA is doing about getting some of that information from the people you’ve been speaking with.

REGAN: You know, thank you for asking that question. Our ‘Journey to Justice’ tour really is about getting from behind the desk in Washington, D.C., and traveling and meeting people where they are and hearing their stories. My tour started here in Jackson, Mississippi, and went through the Black Belt of the South.

But I’ve also been to Puerto Rico as well. And we’re looking to move to to take a trip to the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia soon. The goal is to really highlight the infrastructure needs, the lack of investment in many of our Black and brown and low-income and tribal communities.

And the reality is, is that we’re finally at a point where we have the resources at the federal level to match to many solutions that these communities have had for decades.

Thanks to the president’s leadership and to Congress, we have a number of historic pieces of legislation that finally give us billions of dollars that we could put into the hands of states, communities, nonprofits to really provide that path forward for clean air and clean water and environmental justice and equity for everyone in this country.

GMA3: Well you are certainly a very busy man. So we appreciate your time today. EPA Administrator Michael Regan, thank you so much.

REGAN: Hey, thank you for having me.

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