The Santa Fe, Texas school shooting in 2018 killed 10 people and injured 13. Like the many school shootings before it, it drew national attention to a place unaccustomed to that for the worst of reasons. But the news cameras didn’t stick around forever.
The shooter has been declared incompetent to stand trial, so the community has gotten few official answers about what happened. A trial of the shooter’s parents begins next week. But they’ve also been pleading to the Department of Justice for an investigation.
That hasn’t borne fruit though. A letter they sent in April to the DOJ was recently answered with a one-page dismissal that actually misnamed the community involved.
Michael Matranga is a former secret service agent and CEO of M6 Global Defense based in Texas City. He spoke to the Texas Standard about trying to help the families of the shooting victims get answers. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: First, why have you stepped up to support the families of the Santa Fe shootings? There something about their situation that just really speaks to you?
Michael Matranga: Well, I’m from the area. I grew up in the region. I’ve been here for 40 years, outside of my time spent in D.C. and in Las Vegas on the job. I came back to the region to really provide a more proactive stance on school security. And I have been involved in multiple legislative efforts here in the state of Texas.
But for me, you know, I decided to write this letter of request to the Department of Justice for a third party investigation because Santa Fe nationally has been labeled at these conferences that I attend as pretty much the forgotten shooting, because the defendant has been rendered incompetent to stand trial. And so after six years of waiting for local leaders, state and federal leaders to step up and make a plea on behalf of these victims, and that just not happening, I just said, “well, you know, if not me, then who?” Because I can’t depend on them to do it.
And so I met with a couple of the victims who I’ve grown very fond of and decided, “hey, listen, someone has to advocate – let’s do this. Let’s get an appeal and let’s get a request written and see how this goes.”
You you said Santa Fe is often referred to as the “forgotten shooting.” What sort of response did you get back from the DOJ?
Well, we submitted our 15-page report along with four additional letters of support from our congressmen, our senator, our two state reps. And, we essentially got back a boilerplate letter that says, “thank you for your inquiry into a third party investigation” – criminal investigation, which is what we did not ask for – “into the Columbine shooting.”
And so, if you can imagine, that was a tremendous disrespect to the victims and to their families. It was just another slap in the face. It was another loss for these victims. And it was just completely inappropriate.
What accounts for this?
I think it’s just incompetence. It was clear to me that when they received it… I mean, you know, I spent an additional $200 just preparing the documents so that it looked professional. And I assume that with the support of a sitting United States congressman and a Texas senator along with our state reps, that this would get an expedited look.
But it was clear to me that this was just another piece of mail that someone got, and they quickly glanced over it and they hastily and disrespectfully didn’t even get the name right and sent me back a boilerplate letter that said, “hey, if you’re looking for a criminal investigation, this is who we recommend you call.” And that’s the Houston field office.
Have you shared this with any of the family members?
I have. They’re very upset. Obviously some of those that were directly involved with this had a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety that’s been inflicted upon them on behalf of the Department of Justice. One of the individuals, in particular, essentially had another breakdown.
And, you know, I asked the question to our local, state and federal politicians – “where does it stop? Ask yourself, if this were your child, if this were your spouse, would you just quietly go away like these people have been pretty much asked to do?” Not necessarily asked verbally, but just by the actions of our local officials and our state officials and our federal officials. They’ve sat back and done nothing to fight for these people.
And I think the articulation is that, well, he hasn’t gone to trial yet. But in the letter, I wrote that in the state of Texas, it takes a roughly about 150 days to restore someone’s competency. We are now over 1,200-plus days since this event happened. The likelihood of that happening is dwindling on a day to day basis.
So we’re not asking for a criminal investigation into the intentions. We’re asking for an investigation into what went wrong with the response.
