LOGOS IN THE NEWS: Helio Fred Garcia Quoted in the San Antonio Express-News

On Sunday, June 26, 2022, Logos president Helio Fred Garcia was quoted in a commentary in the San Antonio Express-News on the failure of law enforcement to effectively communicate during the tragic Uvalde school shooting and the loss of trust that has followed.

The commentary was written by Brandon Lingle, who several years ago attended a lecture by Garcia at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Md. Lingle recalls the lessons he learned from Garcia during that lecture, including the criteria for what to do and say in a crisis, “What would reasonable people appropriately expect a responsible organization to do when faced with this?” In his commentary, Lingle describes the reasonable expectations held before the shooting, how those expectations changed after the shooting, and the ways in which the failure of the local police department to meet those reasonable expectations.

Garcia reflected on the wider context of the Uvalde tragedy within American society. “It’s impossible to separate the aftermath of Uvalde from the national disagreement about firearms,” Garcia explained. “This isn’t a Texas thing. It isn’t a Uvalde thing on its own. It is in the context of this massive problem of gun violence that coincides with this massive division in American political life.”

On the communication failures of the local police department, Garcia commented, “They got themselves caught in some form of miscommunication or misinformation, and then they withdrew, and now they seem to be pointing fingers. It’s easy to point fingers at the less robust, less experienced police departments when there’s been a massive failure like this.”

Read the full article below or here.