The principal of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was suspended on Monday, almost exactly two months after 19 students and two teachers were killed in the second deadliest school shooting in American history.
Principal Mandy Gutierrez was placed on administrative leave with pay by Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) Superintendent Hal Harrell, her attorney Ricardo Cedillo confirmed in a statement to The Independent.
He added that Ms Gutierrez will be “responding to questions posed by Superintendent Harrell before the end of this week”.
Her suspension comes one week after the Texas House committee investigating the 24 May massacre released its bombshell report which pointed to failings at all levels and by all authorities that day.
The probe, which was based on interviews with dozens of witnesses including the principal, revealed that Ms Gutierrez knew that the door to one of the classrooms where the shooting took place didn’t lock properly – but failed to have it repaired.
Surveillance footage shows that 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos was able to open the classroom door and enter without a key.
“Robb Elementary had recurring problems with maintaining its doors and locks. In particular, the locking mechanism to Room 111 was widely known to be faulty, yet it was not repaired,” the report reads.
“The Robb Elementary principal, her assistant responsible for entering maintenance work orders, the teacher in Room 111, other teachers in the fourth grade building, and even many fourth grade students widely knew of the problem with the lock to Room 111.
“Nevertheless, no one placed a work order to repair the lock— not the principal, her secretary, the teacher to Room 111, or anyone else.”
Ms Gutierrez admitted in her testimony to the committee that the school administration knew about the issues with the door locking, revealing that it had been reported around 2022 spring break time.
Then, on the day of the shooting, the principal did not communicate a lockdown alert over the school’s intercom system when Ramos entered the building and started shooting.
The school district did not immediately return The Independent’s request for comment.
Ms Guttierez was newly appointed as principal of Robb Elementary School at the start of the 2021/2022 school year.
However, she has worked at the school for more than two decades. Ms Guttierez started out as a fourth grade teacher in 2008 before becoming assistant principal in 2018.
She is now the second UCISD employee placed on leave in the aftermath of the massacre.
The first was School Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who has shouldered much of the blame for the bungled response to the mass shooting. As the on-site commander, the police chief failed to send law enforcement officers into the classroom to confront the gunman.
Instead, a staggering 77 minutes passed from the time when the gunman entered Robb Elementary School and began killing innocent victims to the moment when an elite Border Parol unit finally breached the classroom and shot the perpetrator dead.
The Texas House committee report stated that it was “plausible” that the lengthy delay cost the lives of some of the victims bleeding out inside the room.
One teacher died of her injuries in an ambulance while three children died after reaching hospital.
Chief Arredondo was initially placed on administrative leave back on 22 June as criticism of his handling of the massacre mounted and multiple investigations were launched.
The school board was expected to meet for a special school board meeting on Saturday where they would vote to fire him altogether, but the meeting was cancelled last minute.
It will now be held at a later – as yet unconfirmed – date.
Ms Guttierez’s suspension came the same day that the UCISD board held a meeting on Monday night where victims’ families and local residents demanded board members take responsibility for its own failings that enabled the massacre to unfold.
Board member Luis Fernandez finally admitted to the frustrated crowd that “everybody messed up”.
At the meeting, the board also agreed to postpone the start of the next school year until 6 September so that officials can resolve security issues including the replacement of classrooms at Robb Elementary.
