A former Texas police officer, among the first to respond to shots fired at Uvalde’s elementary school, was fired Thursday.
Crimson Elizondo was hired by Uvalde School District despite knowing she was under investigation by her previous agency, the Texas Department of Public Safety, according to a CNN report. After the report aired, less than two days after Elizondo was hired as a school police officer, the district terminated her.
CNN further reported:
Crimson Elizondo was one of the state troopers who arrived at Robb Elementary within two minutes of a gunman entering the school and opening fire last May.
She is seen in her Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) uniform, handgun drawn, outside the school building in Uvalde, and then briefly in the hallway on the body camera footage from another law enforcement officer.
Later, she can be heard on body camera footage talking to fellow officers when someone asks if she had children at the school that day.
“If my son had been in there, I would not have been outside,” she said. “I promise you that.”
Elizondo was one of the first of the 91 DPS officers to arrive, one of the 376 total law enforcement personnel who went to the school where the shooter was left for 77 minutes – with dead, dying and traumatized victims – before he was stopped. The response to the attack in which 19 children and two teachers were killed has been denounced as an “abject failure” with enough blame to be spread widely.
The school police chief was fired and now seven DPS officers are being investigated for what they did – or did not – do. CNN has uncovered exclusively that Elizondo is one of those officers being investigated. A source close to the investigation also confirmed that to CNN.
She no longer works for DPS. During the summer, she was hired as a police officer for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, where her role is to protect some of the very same children who survived the Robb Elementary shooting.
Elizondo declined to speak with CNN in person, on the phone or by direct message.
Following this CNN report, the school district issued a statement announcing her termination effective Thursday.
“We are deeply distressed by the information that was disclosed yesterday evening concerning one of our recently hired employees, Crimson Elizondo,” the statement from the district said. “We sincerely apologize to the victim’s families and the greater Uvalde community for the pain that this revelation has caused. Ms. Elizondo’s statement in the audio is not consistent with the District’s expectations.”
“Regarding the remaining UCISD Police Department employees, we continue to make personnel decisions based on verifiable information. An independent investigation is underway to evaluate the actions of the current officers on May 24, 2022. Additionally, we are awaiting results of a management and organizational review of the UCISD Police Department that will aid the district in taking informed actions to further ensure the safety and security of our schools,” the statement added.
However, the Uvalde School District Police were informed as early as July 28 that Elizondo was subject to investigation by the department’s Office of Inspector General for actions “inconsistent with training and department requirements,” according to documents obtained by CNN in a public records request.
But Abbott claims the school district had reached out to the Texas DPS before hiring Elizondo and was told the officer “had actions inconsistent with training and department requirements,” the Texas Tribune reported.
“So that school district had full information about the person they chose to go ahead and hire, and that’s up to the school district — not DPS, not anybody else — to have to own up to the poor decision they made,” Abbott told reporters Thursday.
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