After Legal Threats, Uvalde School District Lifts Ban on Parent Who Criticized Police Hire

Source: Reason

After Legal Threats, Uvalde School District Lifts Ban on Parent Who Criticized Police Hire

Adam Martinez was banned from school property after he criticized the district's decision to hire an officer deemed "ineligible for rehire" by the local sheriff's office.

EMMA CAMP | 7.10.2023 2:17 PM

In February, Adam Martinez—the parent of a Robb Elementary School shooting survivor—was banned from Uvalde school board meetings following his public criticism of the school district's hiring of a certain police officer. However, following the threat of legal action, the school district has now reversed course and lifted its ban against Martinez.

Following the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Martinez—like many parents whose children survived the tragedy—became a vocal critic of the Uvalde police department, which had attracted national attention for its failure to act quickly when the shooting began.

On February 13, Martinez attended a Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) School Board meeting with the intention of voicing his opposition to the district's decision to hire a police officer that the Uvalde County Sheriff's Office had deemed "ineligible for rehire."

At the meeting, Martinez approached Joshua Gutierrez, the UCISD police chief, and criticized the decision to hire the new officer. Though Gutierrez told Martinez to sit down, Martinez continued speaking to him. According to a letter sent to the school district's board of trustees by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a First Amendment nonprofit, video recordings from the meeting show that the conversation remained "quiet and did not disrupt the meeting."

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Read more: https://reason.com/2023/07/10/after-legal-threats-uvalde-school-district-lifts-ban-on-parent-who-criticized-police-hire/