San Antonio Animal Care Services employees investigated for mocking Uvalde massacre

San Antonio’s embattled Animal Care Services department just can’t seem to shake off controversy.

Records obtained by the Current show the city’s human resources department looked into allegations ACS employees on April 27, 2023, cracked jokes about the Robb Elementary School massacre as they drove past victims’ families tending to a memorial at the campus.

The ACS workers were in Uvalde for a training course less than a year after Texas’ worst school shooting took place, documents show.

Two of the employees resigned during the city’s investigation, according to human resources documents. However, the alleged driver of the car, Paul Trujillo, is still employed by ACS as a lead veterinary technician, his LinkedIn shows.

Watchdog group InfuseSA first released the city records Saturday via its Facebook page.

ACS didn’t immediately respond to the Current’s request for comment on human resources inquiry and the employee resignations.

According to city records, Trujillo, ACS officers Johnnie Alvarado and Asia Carter along with the employee who filed the HR complaint attended a three-day training session in Uvalde. When the group finished testing early, they drove past now-shuttered Robb Elementary, where 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered on May 24, 2022.

The complainant who reported the alleged incident to the city HR department wasn’t named in the documents.

City records show conflicting recollections of whose idea it was to travel by the school. However, Trujillo was driving the car, according to the HR paperwork.

Once the group arrived at Robb Elementary, the complaint stated that seven or eight family members of the victims were there, tending to a memorial dedicated to their dead loved ones.

“As we drove past, [Trujillo] said that ‘We should roll down the window and yell that we have a gun,” the complainant said in a statement to city HR officials.

The complainant continued: “It wasn’t just a ‘one and done’ joke because [Carter] got really loud and kept saying to roll down the window so that she could say it to them.”

Carter didn’t respond to the Current’s request for comment. The Current also attempted to contact Trujillo online but got no response.

After passing the memorial, Trujillo made a U-turn to drive by a second time, according to details the complainant related to city HR staff. Indeed, some in the car were so concerned that Carter was actually going to yell that she had a gun that they demanded the complainant roll up the window to prevent her from calling out to the families, the document states.

“I am used to the dark humor at ACS, but I never thought people could openly mock someone grieving the loss of their kids,” the complainant wrote.

The complainant also wrote that they were worried the families gathered at the memorial had overheard the ACS workers’ comments and laughter since the vehicle’s windows were rolled down.

During an interview about the alleged incident, Carter resigned from her position, according to city HR documents.

Although the initial complaint said Alvarado “seemed to stay quiet during the entire incident,” he also resigned during the probe, city records show.

After its investigation, city HR officials concluded the “facts of the investigation support the allegation” made by the complainant, according to city documents.

Although Trujillo was driving the vehicle and made the decision to pass by Robb Elementary twice, he faced no disciplinary action, city records show. He is still employed by ACS, according to his LinkedIn account.

The Uvalde trip at the heart of the HR investigation occurred under the watch of former ACS director Shannon Sims, who left the department in May 2024. He was pushed into early retirement after calling animal advocates “social media terrorists” during a speech he gave at an ACS advisory meeting.

The Uvalde investigation is the latest controversy swirling around ACS, which has been under a microscope in the wake of a series of high-profile dog attacks. In the most notable of those, a pack of loose canines mauled 81-year-old Ramon Najera Jr. to death in February 2023.

Since then, animal rights advocates have accused ACS officials of ignoring calls from residents, illegally deleting negative comments from the department’s social media pages and meddling in the city’s hiring process for a new department director.

This week, a viral video posted on social media of a husky being dragged by its leash at the department’s rescue center led to the termination of an ACS contract worker.

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This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2025.