‘Cascading failures’ during Uvalde shooting says report
Police officials who responded to the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, “demonstrated no urgency” in setting up a command post and failed to treat the killings as an active shooter situation, according to a US Justice Department report.
The report released yesterday identifies “cascading failures” in law enforcement’s handling of one of the deadliest massacres at a school in American history.
The justice department report is the most comprehensive federal accounting of the haphazard police response to the May 24 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School.
It identifies a vast array of problems from failed communication and leadership to inadequate technology and training that federal officials say contributed to the crisis lasting far longer than it should have, even as terrified students inside the classrooms called 911 and agonised parents begged officers to go in.
“The victims and survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School deserved better,” attorney general Merrick Garland said in a statement.
“The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary on May 24 2022 – and the response by officials in the hours and days after – was a failure.
“As a consequence of failed leadership, training, and policies, 33 students and three of their teachers – many of whom had been shot – were trapped in a room with an active shooter for over an hour as law enforcement officials remained outside.”
Even for a mass shooting that has already been the subject of intense scrutiny and indepth examinations, the nearly 600-page justice department report adds to the public understanding of how police in Uvalde failed to stop an attack that killed 19 children and two staff members.
Uvalde, a community of more than 15,000 people, continues to struggle with the trauma left by the killing of 19 elementary students and two teachers, and remains divided on questions of accountability for officers’ actions and inaction. The shooting has already been picked over in legislative hearings, news reports and a damning report by Texas legislators who faulted law enforcement at every level with failing “to prioritise saving innocent lives over their own safety”.
Uvalde school district officers arrived within three minutes of the gunman’s arrival at the school and ran towards the classroom, but as they approached, the gunman fired from inside the classroom.
Two officers were hit by shrapnel and police retreated to take cover.
Footage showing police waiting in a hallway outside the fourth-grade classrooms where the gunman opened fire has become the target of national ridicule.
Mr Garland was in Uvalde on Wednesday ahead of the release of the report, visiting murals of the victims that have been painted around the centre of the town.
Later that night, justice department officials privately briefed family members at a community centre in Uvalde before the findings were made public.
The victims and survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School deserved better Merrick Garland