Chief Pete Arredondo has been faulted for a slow response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary.
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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Uvalde school shooting
After another mass shooting, Texas Democrats again push for gun control measures
The question moving forward is whether Democrats, outnumbered in the Texas Legislature for two decades, will be able to put enough pressure on lawmakers to move on a previously intractable issue in gun-friendly Texas and that Republicans, who support looser gun laws, will fight tooth and nail.
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Uvalde school shooting
At NRA convention after Uvalde massacre, attendees describe a culture under siege
Deflecting blame from guns, attendees said a breakdown in society — including removing God from schools and a rise in mental illness — causes mass shootings, echoing the rhetoric of Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
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Uvalde school shooting
This time, Gov. Greg Abbott has few suggestions on how the state might prevent future mass shootings
After previous mass killings during his more than seven years in office, Abbott has pledged that lawmakers and his administration would search for solutions. He made no substantive suggestions Wednesday.
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State Government
Texas GOP primary runoff results show most legislative incumbents prevailing, bucking past trends
In Texas Legislature runoffs, three of four Republican House incumbents succeed, while Democrats set their sights on retaining a South Texas Senate seat.
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Texas Abortion Restrictions
Businesses that help employees get abortions could be next target of Texas lawmakers if Roe v. Wade is overturned
Fourteen GOP legislators warned Lyft that they’d seek to ban companies that pay for abortions from doing business in Texas. The extent of support for the idea is unclear.
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Investigations
New Texas plan for federal Hurricane Harvey aid yields same old result: Funds diverted away from Gulf Coast
Despite an admonition from federal authorities, Land Commissioner George P. Bush’s plan still steers aid disproportionately to whiter, inland counties at less risk of natural disasters.
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Texas Abortion Restrictions
Texas Republicans say if Roe falls, they’ll focus on adoptions and preventing women from seeking abortions elsewhere
State leaders say expanding a social safety net for children and prosecuting abortion funders are among their priorities. “We’ll continue to do our best to make abortion not just outlawed, but unthinkable,” said state Rep. Briscoe Cain.
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Foster Care in Texas
Bastrop shelter caretaker accused of exploiting girls was fired from previous job for misconduct with children
State records show Iesha Greene was fired in 2020 from a state juvenile facility for having inappropriate relationships with children. The Refuge said it was aware of her previous work there, but it never requested her publicly available personnel records.
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Criminal Justice
GOP megadonor Steven Hotze charged after a bogus election fraud scheme led a former cop to threaten a repairman
The charges stem from Hotze’s hiring of more than a dozen private investigators to look for voter fraud in Harris County ahead of the 2020 presidential election.