A lack of preparation, communication and initiative led Texas law enforcement officials to botch their response to a brutal school shooting in 2022, a new Justice Department investigation finds.
The investigation will begin in 2022 to answer questions that have plagued the people of Uvalde, Texas, and the entire nation, long before bodies cooled or blood washed from the walls and floors of Robb Elementary School. It was done.
The question, which the Justice Department has spent more than two years grappling with, is easily articulated but highly contested. 'What took us so long?' About 400 Uvalde Police Department officers stood outside the school for 77 minutes while a gunman roamed the hallways, killing 19 children and two teachers. Why did you spend it?
The answer, the Justice Department told reporters Thursday, was that there was a “lack of urgency” to set up a command post outside the school and a total failure to assess the situation. Told.
The result was a series of “cascading failures” and unnecessary deaths inside the school, while hundreds of police officers stood by outside and took decisive action. just arrest the suffering parents Those who tried to enter the school themselves.
Attorney General Merrick Garland was in Uvalde to present the Justice Department's report.
In a statement, Garland condemned the “failure” of local police's response at Robb Elementary School, saying it was a matter of failing “leadership, training and policy.”
As a result of these mistakes, Garland said, “33 students and three teachers (many of whom had been shot) were trapped in a room with the shooter for more than an hour as law enforcement officers remained outside. '' he added.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin (R) asked the Department of Justice in June 2022 to help find answers, and the department has since spent nearly two years conducting a comprehensive review of the evidence. I went.
The research team visited the Uvalde site over 30 days. We interviewed over 200 people from over 30 organizations and examined over 13,000 pieces of evidence.
The team repeatedly walked the hallways of Robb Elementary School, observing active shooter drills designed to prepare police officers for such situations.
The Department of Justice report follows a July 2022 report by the Texas House of Representatives, and its top-line findings are similar.
An investigation just months after the siege found that state lawmakers did not recognize the severity and nature of the situation facing Uvalde police and did not act courageously to address it. .
“Since Columbine in 1999, law enforcement agencies have recognized the critical importance of providing active shooter training for all officers, regardless of specialty,” Texas lawmakers said. is writing.
Part of this training states that “preventing the killing of innocent lives is a top priority in any aggressive response to an active shooter, and all police officers are prepared to risk their lives without hesitation.'' They added that there was a need to recognize that “we must
In the first incident, both the Justice Department and Texas lawmakers said the 400 police officers who ultimately converged outside while children were dying inside had no idea they were responding to an active police officer. It concluded that the suspect did not recognize the shooter, a person who was “continuously firing shots.”[ing] Death” and who must be swiftly confronted and killed.
Rather, both reports say they are acting as if they are facing a gunman who has barricaded himself with hostages and must approach them more carefully.
Texas lawmakers concluded that “law enforcement responders at Robb Elementary School failed to comply with active shooter training and did not prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.”
The Department of Justice said the fact that police arrived within three minutes of 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, armed with an AR-15, entering the school and that he waited an additional 74 minutes to enter was an unforgivable error. It was certified as
The Justice Department report states, “A mass shooter approaching his victims should never be considered or treated as a potential target for barricades.”
As the Associated Press pointed out, “The word 'never' is… [was] Italicized for emphasis. ”
One of the first responders on the scene was the Uvalde School District police chief, who was to “assume command and control of the response to the active shooter,” the Texas Legislature revealed.
Instead, the House found that Police Chief Pete Arredondo did not perform that role or delegate that role to another person.
“None of the response personnel making critical decisions in the building received any information that students and teachers who had survived the initial shooting were trapped in rooms 111 and 112 and calling for help,” the House said. the lawmakers wrote.
Arredondo was one of only five police officers fired after the shooting. In November, he lost a lawsuit seeking to reclassify his own firing as an “honorable dismissal” rather than a general dismissal.
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