A Democrat running to represent Uvalde, Texas, in Congress blasted the latest report into the 2022 school shooting as an insult to grieving families and criticized one of his Republican rivals as a would-be “Rambo” who is a poor role model for teenagers.
Santos Limon, who won Tuesday’s Democratic primary for the state’s 23rd District, spoke Friday in a wide-ranging phone interview about the election, the Uvalde mass shooting, the role of Elon Musk in Texas politics and other subjects.
Limon faces an uphill fight in the West Texas district, which Republicans have represented for years, but he said he likes his odds because of his own conservative views and because Republicans are sharply divided. Republicans will decide their nominee in a May 28 runoff primary between the incumbent, Tony Gonzales, and Brandon Herrera, a popular creator of gun videos for YouTube.
Guns are a major subject in the race in part because the district includes Uvalde. Nineteen students and two teachers died at the town’s Robb Elementary School nearly two years ago.
On Thursday, the Uvalde City Council published its report into the massacre and the delayed law enforcement response. The report said there was no evidence of police wrongdoing or failure to follow training, and it criticized parents who tried to get into the building during the shooting.
Parents and residents responded to the report with anger and disbelief at a council meeting with Jesse Prado, an Austin-based investigator who wrote the City Council’s report.
Limon said the residents were justified in their anger.
“He was blaming the parents because they were making chaos outside and, again, there was close to 400 officers inside that building while kids were being massacred,” he said.
An earlier federal investigation was much harsher on local law enforcement than the Prado report was, saying children’s lives may have been saved if officers had responded differently.
Limon said Prado, who did not…
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