President and CEO Bob Moore spoke with KC Counts to cover the area's top stories.
KC Counts
Well, Bob, you were in court when the Walmart gunman pleaded guilty. The emotion in the room must have been quite palpable.
Bob Moore
There were about 40 family members of the people killed in the Walmart shooting in the courtroom of Judge David Guardarrama yesterday when the gunman pleaded guilty to federal charges of hate crimes and using a firearm to commit murder or to injure people. It's hard to describe the emotion there because it was just so overwhelming. But each of the victims was named multiple times during the hearing, and the gunman had to plead guilty 90 times to each count. The most painful moment of the hearing was when the federal prosecutor read basically a statement of facts that underlined the guilty plea that walked everybody through what happened on August 3rd, 2019. Describing when each person was shot and each person was killed, very, very difficult to sit through. And then I think for me, the hardest moment was when the prosecutor, Ian Hannah, said “why did this guy come from North Texas to El Paso to commit these murders?” Mr. Hanna said, “that he did it because he didn't want to kill people near where his family lived.” so he chose El Paso just because it was far away from his North Texas home, and all these beautiful people were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
KC Counts
What's next?
Bob Moore
He has agreed to a sentence of 90 consecutive life terms in prison in the federal system. That means absent a presidential pardon or commutation, he will never be outside of prison walls again. That will take place formally in June. And then the other thing we're still watching is whether the state will continue to pursue its case, he also is facing capital murder charges in Texas, which carry a potential death penalty, which is a punishment that at least some of the victims' families want. But whether the state is going to go through with that is an open question. And it will be a substantial amount of money to seek a death penalty, which you may not get and that will probably take decades to carry out. So, these are decisions that Bill Hicks, the current District Attorney, and El Paso, will have to make. And I think collectively, the community is going to have to make a decision about that too.
KC Counts
All right. Well, with the time we have left a concerning situation, you know, in this time when we do have these incidents occurring so often in communities around our country, we obviously want to see our kids be very safe at school and there is one parent who feels that maybe her child was not.
Bob Moore
She was directly affected by this, so there was all locked down on Monday at Franklin High School in West El Paso, where they had a report of maybe a subject with a gun wandering around the school. That turned out not to be true, but they went on lockdown as a precaution. And this mom just happened to walk up to the school while the lockdown was in progress, not knowing it, and she walked right into a main entry into the campus, eventually security guards came along and asked her what she was doing there and asked her to leave. And obviously, she was very, very concerned that she was able to walk through and said several other people did it too.
The procedures they had in place did not work and an assistant principal told her that there were two people responsible for making sure the door got locked, one went somewhere, and the other one hid. I think these are really disturbing accusations that have been generally acknowledged by the school district. But I think that the mother and other parents they've spoken out about this are really concerned that the school district does not seem to appreciate the gravity of what happened, especially after what we saw in Uvalde last year.
KC Counts
You can read more on these stories at elpasomatters.org. Bob, thanks so much for being with us. Have a wonderful weekend.
Bob Moore
Thank you. And you too.
