AUSTIN, Texas — State lawmakers are considering legislation to improve the emergency response to active shooters at schools.
On Wednesday, the House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety and Veterans’ Affairs heard testimony on House Bill 33, which aims to address gaps in response to police failures during the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
An 18-year-old gunman freely entered the school and holed up in a classroom, where he killed 19 students and two teachers.
Freshman State Rep. Don McLaughlin (R-Uvalde), who was Mayor of Uvalde when the shooting happened, introduced the bill, which he called the “Uvalde Strong Act.”
As mayor, McLaughlin witnessed the chaos and botched response in Uvalde firsthand.
“The shooter remained inside a classroom full of students while nearly 400 officers from just about every law enforcement agency stood outside, unsure how to act,” McLaughlin said. “Tragically, students and teachers died waiting to be rescued.”
Officers treated the incident as a barricaded suspect rather than an active shooter. For 70-plus minutes, they waited in hallways and outside the school before going into the classroom where they eventually shot and killed the gunman.
“I witnessed the confusion, the delay, and the tragic cost of hesitation when every second counted,” McLaughlin said. “We must overhaul our approach to school safety and active shooter situations. We cannot afford to repeat the catastrophic mistakes made during the response.”
House Bill 33 requires school districts to meet annually with state and local law enforcement to plan for active shooter situations and other emergencies. It also mandates that law enforcement agencies convene annually for active shooter training exercises.
“House Bill 33 codifies common active shooter response practices to establish a statewide emergency response protocol for all law enforcement and public information officers, eliminating any confusion across jurisdictions,” McLaughlin said. “Under this bill, local governments will be required to participate in annual multi-agency training exercises, biannual roundtable meetings with law enforcement to ensure a unified response during an active shooter incident or any other emergency.”
State law already requires officers to complete the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training, but it does not mandate it for entire agencies, as this bill would.
Mclaughlin said his bill would ensure that police officers, firefighters and paramedics are fully prepared and on the same page during emergencies.
“Passing House Bill 33 will ensure that law enforcement is prepared. Our schools are protected, and failures like those we saw at Robb Elementary never happen again,” McLaughlin said. “No more excuses. No more passing the buck. No more officers standing around waiting for orders while kids are bleeding in the classroom.”
Col. Freeman Martin, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the response may have gone differently, and maybe some of those teachers and students would still be alive.
“You can see the officers were asking ‘what are we doing?'” Martin said. “A lot of them had the ALERRT training, but they were getting conflicting information. It didn’t look like an active shooter. They weren’t treating it like an active shooter.”
Members of law enforcement testified that in situations when there is an active shooter, officers should rush in to neutralize the threat, which is considered standard best practice.
“Whether you’re the first or third officer on the scene, the training is the same. You got to run towards the gunfire,” Martin said. “You got to stop the killing, and no longer can you wait for a tactical team, with or without the equipment. That’s what’s required and is what’s expected.”
The bill establishes a grant program to help law enforcement agencies get accreditation and pay for training. It also requires the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) to develop a guide on preparing for and responding to active shooter incidents.
Nim Kidd, who leads TDEM, used his previous experience as a firefighter in San Antonio to describe how the bill would help first responders better communicate.
“Nothing in my initial training as a firefighter told me what I was supposed to expect from law enforcement. I would probably bet nothing in your initial law enforcement training told you what to expect from Fire and EMS. You learned it the first time you got on scene,” Kidd said. “I think the representative is trying to bring those organizations together before, during and after the event to provide a safer response for Texans.”
Mark Escott, the City of Austin’s chief medical officer, testified in favor of the bill and said that if a response was not good enough, this legislation would allow others on the scene to step up.
“It starts with I’m concerned about. The next step is I’m uncomfortable with. The third step is I believe this situation is unsafe,” Escott said. “If there is an inadequate response, they’re mandated to take control.”
McLaughlin believes the communication issues and lack of a coordinated response plan contributed to the 21 deaths. With this bill, he said he is determined to ensure that does not happen again.
“The safety of our children shouldn’t be a question of who’s in charge. It should be about how we all step up together,” McLaughlin said. “We owe it to the families in Uvalde and to every community in Texas to ensure that we get it right when tragedy strikes.”
Following the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, state lawmakers passed House Bill 3 in 2023. HB 3 requires all public schools to have armed guards on campus, silent panic alert devices in classrooms and mental health training for certain district employees.
Brian Hawthorne, the Sheriff of Chambers County and the Acting First Vice President of the Sheriffs Association of Texas, expressed concern that the proposal’s mandated annual active shooter drill and school security reviews are redundant.
Hawthorne said agencies are still working to comply with changes from House Bill 3.
“We still have not even completed the established training,” Hawthorne said. “We are working out the sheriff’s meetings with the schools and the police chiefs and the fire departments.”
For smaller agencies, Hawthorne said the added training could strain their already limited resources.
“We don’t have the personnel we can just give up to do these mass casualty events,” Hawthorne said. “I still have murderers and rapes and child abuse and all these other cases that I got to make sure [we can] continue to keep working. I can’t drop what we’re doing to work on a tabletop event.”
Hawthorne said smaller agencies will need to figure out how to prepare with small increments of training, like with ALERRT.
McLaughlin said his goal with the bill is to open communication between first responders, so if there’s an emergency, everyone is on the same page.
“We can’t fix the past, but we sure can fix the future,” McLaughlin said. “Passing [House Bill 33] isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s the only thing to do.”
Lawmakers left House Bill 33 pending in the House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety and Veterans’ Affairs. McLaughlin said he is working on making some changes to the bill. He said they won’t change the bill’s concept, but “will allow agencies to work together in a more effective way.”
To make it to the House floor, the committee would have to vote to advance it at a future hearing.
Last week, the Texas Senate passed a bill to increase funding for school safety. Senate Bill 260 increases the per student and per campus school safety allotment. Each school district would get an additional $15,000 per campus and an extra $10 per student.
School districts have struggled with the costs associated with implementing the mandate in HB 3 and have told lawmakers the current level of funding is not feasible. State lawmakers hope SB 620 will provide some relief. The bill has passed the Senate but the House has not taken any action on it.