This story was produced in partnership with URL Media and originally published by NAHJ: palabra.
For so long, the people of South Texas have been expected to sacrifice their communities to a border security apparatus. Drones, helicopters, and agents have saturated cities and towns where residents have gone without health insurance and send their children to underfunded schools. It was this apparatus that responded in late May when a gunman rampaged through an elementary school classroom in Uvalde, killing children—19 in all—and two teachers.
Hundreds of state troopers, federal immigration agents, sheriff’s deputies, U.S. Marshals, and local police quickly descended on a town of 15,000, set among ranchlands 80 miles southwest of San Antonio and 60 miles from the border with Mexico. That rapid influx reflected the deep penetration of the border security apparatus in the region. And it was members of that apparatus, a tactical team that included Border Patrol agents, that Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw credited with charging into a classroom and killing the gunman.
But amid the public speculation about the causes that may have motivated a young man to kill third and fourth graders, that apparatus went almost unmentioned. Abbott and McCraw, whose agency is leading the investigation into the massacre, grasped at familiar themes—mental illness, video games, bullying. Speculation quickly morphed into purpose,…
