Uvalde’s Darkest Hour

When the police scanner announced an active shooter at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022, Uvalde Leader-News staff writers held their collective breath. In those confusing and terrifying moments, these journalists embarked on coverage that no community newspaper should ever have to undertake. Among that five-person staff was Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed in her classroom along with 18 classmates and two teachers. The trauma of that loss and the second tragedy--the 77 minutes that law enforcement waited to rescue children from an 18-year-old mass murderer--shattered faith in the community’s most trusted institutions. Craig Garnett, owner and publisher of the Uvalde Leader-News, has compiled first-hand accounts that follow the community’s halting steps toward healing and Kimberly Rubio’s simultaneous plunge into activism.

This chilling story, told with both clear-eyed journalistic integrity and gripping emotional intensity, chronicles the horrific chain of events, introduces readers to the principal actors, and relates the aftermath as the community tries to heal, to make sense of the incomprehensible, and to seek meaningful change on the local and state level. As readers follow this journey, there will be moments when the sheer tragedy may cause them to put the book aside. But the people whose lives are revealed here have no such luxury. This is their story.

CRAIG GARNETT has owned the Uvalde Leader-News, the local newspaper, since 1989. He moved to Uvalde in 1982 to begin work with the Leader-News, where his weekly editorials and columns have won dozens of awards from the Texas Press Association and South Texas Press Association. Garnett received the 2023 Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity, and tenacity in rural journalism for his coverage of the 2022 Uvalde school shooting.