By Holly Yan, Matthew J. Friedman, Shimon Prokupecz, Rachel Clarke, Leigh Waldman, Danya Gainor, CNN

(CNN) — After a yearslong legal battle, Uvalde County and the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District have released records related to the 2022 mass shooting that killed 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas.

More than a dozen media outlets sued for the records three years ago. While the newly released materials didn’t reveal any significant new information beyond what CNN has already reported, some shed light on communications to and from local leaders after the fatal rampage at Robb Elementary School.

Uvalde officials came under widespread scrutiny for the delayed response to the massacre on May 24, 2022. None of the 376 law enforcement officers who responded confronted and killed the assailant until 77 minutes after he had entered the school.

During that time, wounded children were trapped inside a classroom with the killer. Students hid near their dead classmates. At least one child called 911 begging for help as dozens of officers stood in the hallway.

For months, officials repeatedly changed their stories about what happened or who was to blame. Grieving families demanded answers and records from school district and local officials, to no avail.

What the county’s records reveal

Tuesday, Uvalde County released body-worn camera footage from sheriff’s deputies and more than 1,000 pages of documents related to the mass shooting and response.

But CNN has already reported the most salient details, including those from bodycam footage obtained from sources during three years of reporting. The number of videos released is actually fewer than the amount previously obtained by CNN.

A 2022 CNN investigation found Sheriff Ruben Nolasco knew the gunman’s name and that he had shot his grandmother before entering the school – critical details Nolasco failed to share with other officers as some tried to negotiate with the shooter.

When Nolasco arrived at Robb Elementary, he also failed to take control of the chaotic scene. Hundreds of law enforcement officers waited for orders instead of following active-shooter protocol to storm the classroom and stop the killing.

Nolasco was among the highest-ranking and most experienced officers at the scene that day. He is still the sheriff of Uvalde County, a position he was narrowly re-elected to last year.

The county’s release of documents includes emails from the public to the sheriff, lambasting him and his deputies for how they responded to the massacre.

“You and your sorry a** ‘officers’ are a bunch of absolute cowards, may you never have a moment of peace,” one person wrote.

What school district records reveal

Uvalde CISD released hundreds of pages of records Monday, including:

– Discussions between officials about victims and their families

– The academic and disciplinary record of the gunman

– Text messages involving embattled former Uvalde school Police Chief Pete Arredondo.

“Will anyone be able to just to come in to the school without any notice,” a parent wrote one month after the shooting. They also asked about the possibility of more officers at the school or whether higher fencing will be installed on campus.

Other parents emailed the school district and accused it of not considering students’ emotional states after the shooting. One criticized school board members lacking humility. Some called for Arredondo to be fired.

But in one email, a school official details a series of claims about the law enforcement response that she says are false. Sandra Garza, an assistant superintendent, tells superintendent Michael Rodriguez it was “fundamentally wrong” to place all the blame on the responding officers.

“The officers who responded did what they could with the information that they had at the time and the resources they had available to them,” Garza wrote in the June 2, 2022, email.

“This is similar to Vietnam Veterans returning home from the war to be met with protests of people calling them Baby Killers and spitting on them,” she added.

The records included an email Arredondo sent to himself June 11, 2022 – more than two weeks after the shootings – that included a slide from an emergency procedures presentation. The slide said “the actions taken in the initial minutes of an emergency are critical.” It wasn’t clear why Arredondo sent himself the slide.

The school district fired Arredondo, the school police chief, three months after the slaughter. Arredondo, along with former UCISD police officer Adrian Gonzales, was later indicted on the first criminal charges related to the school massacre.

Arredondo faces 10 counts of child endangerment and known criminal negligence. Gonzales faces 29 counts of abandoning and endangering a child. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Officials didn’t want the records released

CNN and 17 other news organizations sued the city of Uvalde, Uvalde CISD and Uvalde County in 2022 for public information after officials refused to release key records for months.

“The Uvalde community and citizens of Texas deserve answers and the opportunity to heal from this horrific tragedy,” the lawsuit said.

A trial court ruled in favor of the media outlets in July 2024, and the city of Uvalde released its records the next month.

But Uvalde County and the school district appealed the trial court’s decision. They lost that battle last month, when the Fourth Court of Appeals ruled against the county and school district.

This week’s releases follow a scathing 575-page report from the US Department of Justice last year. The DOJ’s report said a lack of courage and “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy, and training” led to “unimaginable horror” for victims.

This story has been updated to include additional information.

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