School shooting may not bring change to gun-loving Texas

Texas has more than 1.2 million licensed handgun owners who can openly carry their weapons in public. The state hosted the National Rifle Association's annual meeting two weeks ago. And until Monday, the governor's re-election website was raffling off a shotgun.

The Governor of Texas Greg Abbott joins a congregation in prayer at the Arcadia First Baptist Church two days after a shooting killed 10 people at Santa Fe High School, Sunday, May 20, 2018, in Santa Fe. Eight of the people killed were students. ( Marie D. De Jesus / Houston Chronicle )

Guns are so hard-wired into Texas culture that last week's deadly rampage at Santa Fe High School is considered unlikely to result in any significant restrictions on access to weapons in the Lone Star State.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott reacted to the killings of eight students and two teachers by calling for a series of roundtable discussions on school safety, starting Tuesday in Austin. He said last week that he wants to find ways to keep guns away from those who pose an "immediate danger to others."

But the state's 20-year dominance by the Republican Party all but guarantees the meetings will be dominated by calls to boost school security and "harden" campuses — an idea backed by the NRA — instead of demands for gun restrictions, said Cal Jillson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University.

Television newscasters prepare to give updates near a memorial in front of Santa Fe High School on Sunday, May 20, 2018 in Santa Fe, Texas, where a student shot and killed eight classmates and two teachers at Santa Fe High School. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP)

That's in sharp contrast to the response to the Feb. 14 shooting rampage at a high school in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead. Three weeks after the bloodbath, Florida politicians defied the NRA and passed a gun control package after a lobbying campaign led by student survivors of the attack.

"The difference in Texas is the Republican Party is in complete control. It is unchallenged at the state level," Jillson said. "Even the young people from Santa Fe are not full-throated advocates of gun control to keep the children safe."

In fact, at a church service Sunday, Santa Fe High student Monica Bracknell, who survived the shooting, told the governor the attack should not be turned into a battle over gun control.

Santa Fe, Texas, resident, Lori Simmons prays for healing in front of 10 wooden crosses at Santa Fe High School on Monday, May 21, 2018, in Santa Fe. (Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle via AP)

"People are making this into a political issue," she said. "This is not a political issue. It's not a gun-law issue."

Similarly, Callie Wylie, a 16-year-old Santa Fe High student who dropped off flowers Monday at a memorial for the shooting victims, said the violence is not a "gun problem."

"Obviously things need to change. Something needs to happen. This has happened way too much," Wylie said. "But I don't think at this time people need to be pushing politics on us and telling us, 'Oh, this is gun control.'"

Sentiments like those could give Abbott political cover if his roundtable discussions don't lead to major changes.

Santa Fe resident, Lori Simmons cries during a moment of silence in front of Santa Fe High School Monday, May 21, 2018, in Santa Fe. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called for a moment of silence at 10 a.m. Monday morning to remember the victims of the Santa Fe School Shooting. (Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle via AP)

Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, is jailed on murder charges in Friday's attack. Authorities said the Santa Fe High student opened fire with his father's shotgun and .38-caliber handgun.

Gun control advocates around the country have long pressed for such measures as expanded background checks and a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, but such measures would probably have had no effect on the Santa Fe High shooting.

Abbott has said he wants the roundtable discussions to include lawmakers, educators, students, parents, gun-rights advocates and survivors of the November church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, that killed two dozen people.

Santa Fe High School students, parents and the community observed a Moment of Silence Monday, May 21, 2018, in Santa Fe. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called for a moment of silence at 10 a.m. Monday morning to remember the victims of the Santa Fe School Shooting. ( Steve Gonzales / Houston Chronicle )

Tuesday's meeting will include officials from school districts that arm some teachers or contract with local police for security. The governor's office said most of the meeting will be held in private.

School officials said students won't return to classes until after Memorial Day — on Tuesday, May 29.

Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset said Monday police were able to "engage" the shooter four minutes after they were called. He said the shooter was contained, with minimal gunfire from law enforcement officers, until his arrest to the art classroom where his bloody rampage was focused. That allowed the rest of the school to be evacuated safely.

How much time elapsed from the moment gunfire erupted until the last victim was shot remains unclear. Trochesset said he doesn't think any additional students were shot after officers confronted the shooter but can't make a final determination until autopsies are completed.

Trochesset said 200 officers from law enforcement agencies throughout the region converged Friday afternoon on the shooting scene. Santa Fe High School had an active-shooter plan and two armed security guards on campus.

Dayspring Church senior pastor Brad Drake wears a shirt in support of the school shooting victims Sunday, May 20, 2018, in Santa Fe, Texas. Congregations in this deeply religious community near Houston gathered Sunday for their first worship services since a teenager with a shotgun blasted his way into a high school art classroom and killed 10 people — eight students and two teachers. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Abbott and Texas Republicans have embraced a steady relaxation of guns laws in recent years. Since 2013, Texas has reduced the cost and hours of training needed to be licensed to carry a handgun, allowed "open carry" for handgun license holders, and allowed concealed handguns in college classrooms and dorms.

In 2015, Abbott tweeted he was "embarrassed" that Texas lagged behind California in gun sales. In 2017, he bragged about his accuracy with a pistol at a shooting range. In a speech to the NRA convention in Dallas, Abbott said, "The problem is not guns. The problem is hearts without God. It is homes without discipline and communities without values."

On Monday, Abbott's re-election campaign scaled back its shotgun raffle in the wake of the Santa Fe shooting, replacing it with a raffle for a $250 gift certificate. A photograph of the governor aiming a shotgun was removed.

After the Florida tragedy, President Donald Trump organized discussions on how to prevent school shootings and at least mentioned the idea of limiting gun sales, though little concrete came out of those. Abbott so far has committed to even less.

Texas holds primary runoffs Tuesday, meanwhile, and the Santa Fe shooting is not expected to be a deciding factor in any major race, just as the Sutherland Springs massacre barely registered as a campaign issue before last week.

And it's not just Republicans. Former Dallas County Sherriff Lupe Valdez, who is favored to win Tuesday's Democratic gubernatorial runoff and face Abbott in November, has called for stricter background checks and closing of gun sale loopholes.

But she was quick to add: "That doesn't mean I'm against guns. I've worn a gun over 40 years. It means I'm against stupidity."

In a letter to the governor on Monday, Democratic state lawmakers urged Abbott to consider gun control measures that failed to pass in previous sessions.

Still, Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, a lawyer who is favored to win a runoff for the Democratic nomination in a potentially flippable, Republican-held congressional district in Houston, not far from where Friday's shooting took place, refrained from criticizing the governor for not doing more than organizing discussions.

"I hope that these discussions move us closer to real reform," Fletcher said Monday. "Our lives depend on it."

HOUSTON (AP) — A judge has recommended that the conviction and death sentence of Melissa Lucio, a Texas woman whose execution was delayed in 2022 amid growing doubts she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter, should be overturned amid findings that evidence in her murder trial was suppressed.

Senior State District Judge Arturo Nelson on Friday approved an agreement between prosecutors and Lucio’s attorneys that found the suppressed evidence, including witness statements from Lucio’s children and a report by Child Protective Services, would have corroborated Lucio’s defense that her daughter Mariah died of a head injury sustained in an accidental fall down a steep staircase two days before her death.

“She would not have been convicted in light of the suppressed evidence,” according to the 33-page agreement between the office of Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz and Lucio’s attorneys.

Nelson’s recommendation has been sent to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which will make the final decision on whether Lucio’s conviction and death sentence are overturned. There was no timetable for a ruling by the appeals court. Lucio’s case has become a cause célèbre among people, including Kim Kardashian.

“We hope and pray the Court of Criminal Appeals will agree with the District Attorney, the defense, and Judge Nelson and our mother can come home to her family. It’s been 17 years that we have been without her. We love her and miss her and can’t wait to hug her,” Lucio’s children said in a statement Monday.

The agreement on findings in Lucio’s case had remained in limbo for 16 months before another judge, Gabriela Garcia. On April 5, Lucio’s lawyers and Saenz had issued a joint public statement in which they discussed that the findings were still under review by Garcia.

On April 10, Missy Medary, the presiding judge for the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region in South Texas, assigned Nelson to address the pending findings in the case. Nelson, who is a retired judge and had presided over Lucio’s 2008 trial, approved the findings two days later.

Garcia's court had requested that Nelson be assigned “to address the pending findings and conclusions as he was the trial judge in the case and has direct knowledge of the trial,” Emily Jirovec, an administrative assistant with the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region, said in an email Tuesday.

Lucio, 55, had been set for lethal injection in April 2022 for the 2007 death of her daughter in Harlingen, a city of about 71,000 in Texas’ southern tip. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted her lethal injection two days before her scheduled execution so Lucio’s claims that new evidence would exonerate her could be reviewed.

Before the agreed findings approved by Nelson, prosecutors had long maintained Mariah was the victim of abuse and noted her body was covered in bruises.

Lucio’s case has garnered support from Kardashian and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody.

“Melissa Lucio has been in jail for more than a decade and a half, which is an unimaginable injustice, but one that can at least be undone,” Moody said in a post Tuesday on the social platform X.

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FILE - This undated booking photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Melissa Lucio. A judge has recommended that the conviction and death sentence of Lucio, a Texas woman whose execution was delayed in 2022 amid growing doubts she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter, should be overturned amid findings that evidence in her murder trial was suppressed. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP, File)

FILE - Esperanza Treviño, Melissa Lucio's mother, pleas to the public as she is surrounded by family and friends on the steps of the Cameron County Courthouse Administrative entrance in Brownsville, Texas, Feb. 7, 2022, that her daughter is innocent and was wrongfully sentenced to death for the murder of Lucio's 2-year-old daughter. A judge has recommended that the conviction and death sentence of Lucio, a Texas woman whose execution was delayed in 2022 amid growing doubts she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter, should be overturned amid findings that evidence in her murder trial was suppressed. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald via AP, File)