The Department of Public Safety has finished its investigation into how officers responded to Texas’ deadliest school shooting. The agency has fired one officer and is in the process of firing another.
Zach Despart
Zach Despart is an enterprise and investigative reporter focusing on state government. His work on a team investigating the flawed police response to the Uvalde school shooting was awarded the 2024 Collier Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting. He led the Tribune’s effort to become the first news organization to map the fragmented 50-mile Texas border wall, a project that also found the state struggled with holdout landowners along the route. After it was published, the Legislature stopped funding the wall. He previously covered Harris County for the Houston Chronicle, where he reported on corruption, elections, disaster preparedness and the region’s recovery from Hurricane Harvey. His investigation on how Texas diverted Harvey aid away from areas most at risk for storms sparked a federal investigation. An upstate New York native, he received his bachelor’s degree in political science and film from the University of Vermont.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Texas House selects Rep. Dade Phelan as speaker for another legislative session
Phelan defeated Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, for the House leadership position in a vote, 145-3. In cruising to victory, Phelan secured the support of Democrats as well as the most conservative members of his party.
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Politics
Property tax revision, judicial branch expansion among new Texas laws that took effect Jan. 1
While the Legislature will soon start its new session, some laws passed in 2021 are just now taking effect.
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Uvalde school shooting
After Uvalde shooting, Texas senators recommend better mental health care access and school security
The committee urged lawmakers to pay special attention to rural areas. But its lone proposal on guns would not have made a difference in the Robb Elementary shooting.
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Uvalde school shooting
Records reveal medical response further delayed care for Uvalde shooting victims
Previously unreleased video, audio and interviews show for the first time how the medical response faltered after police finally confronted the Robb Elementary shooter.
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Texas 2022 Elections
Republicans narrowly increase their majorities in Texas Legislature
Republican incumbents are successfully defending their seats while the party appears to be making inroads in South Texas.
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Texas 2022 Elections
For the first time, Texas voters send Muslims and openly gay Black men to Legislature
Voters elected Christian Manuel Hayes to House District 22 in Beaumont, Venton Jones to HD-100 in Dallas, Salman Bhojani to HD-92 in Tarrant County and Suleman Lalani to HD-76 in Fort Bend County.
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Uvalde school shooting
“I’m so scared”: 911 recordings reveal fear and urgency of those trapped in Uvalde elementary school
Audio obtained by The Texas Tribune and ProPublica shows just how long police and dispatchers likely knew that children and teachers were in danger before taking action at Robb Elementary School.
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Uvalde school shooting
Texas state trooper who responded to Uvalde shooting fired amid investigations into police response
Department of Public Safety Sgt. Juan Maldonado is the first state police officer fired in the aftermath of a botched police response to the shooting. He was the highest-ranking state trooper to initially respond to Robb Elementary School.
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Texas 2022 Elections
For Republicans, winning Hispanic voters will be a bigger fight than South Texas
Nearly half of Hispanic Texans live in the state’s five largest counties, a voting bloc Democrats cannot afford to lose as they struggle to compete in the state’s vast rural areas.