Uvalde mayor accuses DA of cover-up in school shooting probe

The mayor of Uvalde, Texas, is accusing a local prosecutor of covering up an investigation into the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School — and demands she resign.

Mayor Don McLaughlin Jr. on Tuesday filed a second lawsuit against District Attorney Christina Mitchell in Uvalde District Court, claiming her probe of the police department’s failed response is tainted because her chief investigator was at the scene during the massacre along with cops.

The mayor is demanding Mitchell release all the information she has about the massacre of 19 students and two teachers to the city’s independent investigator, Jesse Prado.

Nobody from the city currently has access to files from the law enforcement agencies that responded to the May 24, 2022, massacre in order to ensure confidentiality of the DA’s investigation.

Her office is looking into whether any officer should be charged over the delay in responding, and whether anyone had knowledge of the gunman’s plans or helped him purchase guns or ammunition.

“I believe that Christina Mitchell, the district attorney for the 38th Judicial District, has been involved in a cover-up regarding the city’s investigation into the Robb School tragedy,” McLaughlin said in a statement as he filed the suit.

“The city hired Mr. Jesse Prado of JPPI on July 21, 2022, approximately two months after the shooting, to investigate the shooting regarding the actions of Uvalde Police Department personnel,” he said of the city government’s decision to hire the former Austin cop.

“Since then, DA Mitchell has refused to provide the city with all information Mr. Prado has requested, resulting in the city filing suit against her in her official capacity to obtain the necessary information for Mr. Prado to complete the city’s administrative investigation.

“She failed, once again, to keep her word,” McLaughlin continued. “The city had to file a suit a second time because DA Mitchell continues to block the city’s investigation.”

“Christina Mitchell should resign immediately,” he asserted.

“Since day one, we have called for transparency from every agency that was there that day,” the mayor concluded. “It’s been 15 months since this tragedy, and I feel the families and our community deserve answers.”

City officials had originally sued Mitchell in November, accusing her of refusing to provide crucial information Prado needed for his inquiry. That suit was dismissed in May when Mitchell agreed to give Prado the information.

But McLaughlin insisted Mitchell has still not made good on her promise.

In response to the newly filed suit, Mitchell told the San Antonio Express-News she has no plans to step down — and defended her investigation.

She called the suit a “distraction and an attempt to keep me, as the district attorney, from completing my mandate to see that justice is done to the best of my ability under the law with the facts and evidence that I have.”

Mitchell also said that while her chief investigator, Shayne Gilland, was at Robb Elementary during the mass shooting, “he is not a first responder.”

She claims he stayed outside — in the school parking lot — while police officers waited in the hallway for 77 minutes as shooter Salvador Ramos,18, continued to fire on fourth-grade students.

Mitchell went on to describe the city’s announcement as “an attempt to make excuses as to the reason they have not completed their internal investigation, when all the other law-enforcement agencies have completed their internal investigations”

“And they did it without any assistance from my office, and never made a request of me for any information,” she noted.

“It’s unfortunate that I am now going to have to address this distraction instead of keeping with my primary responsibility of reviewing the Texas Ranger investigation.”

Mitchell had previously told the Express-News the Texas Rangers handed over their investigative file to her in July, and that she planned to present the case to a grand jury by the end of the year.

The Post has also reached out to the District Attorney’s office for comment.