Brett Cross, who lost his son in the Robb Elementary school shooting, was arrested earlier this week at a county commissioners meeting.
Cross lost his 10-year-old son Uziyah in the shooting. He recently called out Mariano Pargas for his absence at the last county commissioner’s meeting after the Department of Justice released their critical incident review of the shooting.
Pargas was named in the report as not demonstrating incident command training and command leadership on the day of the shooting.
According to Cross, when it was his turn to speak at the meeting, he used an expletive a couple of times.
“I was addressing Mariano and I said, 'There were still eight to nine kids in that classroom. You got the call about it, and you walked the F away,' ” he said.
The judge warned Cross about his language, which Cross thought was ridiculous.
“It's irritating because you care more about language than the fact that you're sitting right next to somebody who had pertinent information that could have saved the lives of children. And so that's what I said. I said language, like, 'my child is effing dead.' And then I got arrested,” he said.
It took hours for the Uvalde police to tell Cross what he was arrested for.
“They finally charged me with disrupting a meeting or procession, which is a class B misdemeanor. But how was I disrupting a meeting that I had signed up for? It was in my allotted time to speak,” he said.
Other Uvalde parents have also expressed frustration with Pargas for his failed response on the day of the shooting. He said would address the police response after the DOJ released their report, which has proven untrue.
“He won't even look at you until you're at the podium and then he stares at you in a boastful way. Like, ‘haha, you're paying my salary,’” Cross said.
He said he intends to pursue legal action because the arrest was a violation of his free speech.
“I’m just going through the process of finding the right person to represent me in this case. Uvalde, unfortunately, has made millions of dollars off of our children who have died."
