Uvalde key finding disputed by mayor
A Uvalde police officer armed with a rifle could have shot a gunman before he entered Robb Elementary School and slaughtered 19 children and two teachers May 24. But the officer lost his chance because he was waiting for a superior’s permission to fire.
That was one of the major revelations in a report on police agencies’ flawed response to the school shooting, released Wednesday by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University in San Marcos.
On Friday, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin Jr. flatly contradicted that explosive finding.
“No Uvalde police department officer saw the shooter on May 24 prior to him entering the school,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “No Uvalde police officers had any opportunity to take a shot at the gunman.
“A Uvalde Police Department officer saw someone outside, but was unsure of who he saw and observed children in the area as well,” the mayor said. “Ultimately, it was a coach with children on the playground, not the shooter.”
ALERRT stood by its 24-page report, which chronicled several significant law enforcement failures that day.
“ALERRT has not received any information that contradicts what is stated in the report,” J. Pete Blair, the police training center’s executive director, said in an email to the San Antonio Express-News. “This is the only officer that we have identified as potentially being able to shoot the attacker before he entered the building.”
The unnamed officer “was sighted in to shoot the attacker” — in other words, he had the shooter in his rifle’s crosshairs — and “was justified in using deadly force to stop the attacker” under the Texas Penal Code, the report said.
The officer was 148 yards from the gunman. That’s “well within the effective range” of the rifle the officer was carrying, but the officer was “concerned that if he missed his shot, the rounds could have penetrated the school and injured students,” according to the report.
The account wasn’t entirely damning. The report noted that state standards require police officers to demonstrate accuracy with rifles up to 100 feet from a target and that it was “possible that the officer had never fired his rifle at a target that was that far away.”
As part of ALERRT’s research, a Texas Ranger briefed center officials for an hour June 1. They also examined body camera recordings, security camera footage from inside the school, radio logs and statements taken from officers who were at the scene.
The Texas Department of Public Safety asked ALERRT to assess the police response shortly after the massacre. Wednesday’s report was the result. The center studies mass shootings and trains law enforcement officers in how to respond to them.
In the Robb Elementary massacre, Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old high school dropout from Uvalde, entered the school through an unlocked door at 11:33 a.m. May 24 and killed the children and teachers with an assaultstyle rifle.
During the incident, more than a dozen police officers gathered in a hallway outside classrooms 111 and 112, where Ramos remained holed up for more than 70 minutes. During that time, students called 911, begging to be rescued.
Officers apparently never tried to open the classroom door — which was unlocked — until a team of officers forced their way in and gunned down Ramos at 12:50 p.m.
One of the report’s central findings was that officers outside the classroom failed at the first priority in responding to a mass shooting — to preserve the lives of victims, even if it puts the officers in peril.
“This ordering means that we expect officers to assume risk to save innocent lives,” the report said. “Responding to an active shooter is a dangerous task. There is a chance that officers will be shot, injured or even killed while responding. This is something that every officer should be acutely aware of when they become a law enforcement officer.”
Spreading the blame
In his statement, McLaughlin said ALERRT’s examination doesn’t give an accurate picture of what happened.
The mayor has chafed at the sharp criticism and anger directed at Uvalde schools police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo and city police officers. In his view, DPS agents and officers from other law enforcement agencies who were also on hand have unjustifiably skirted blame.
“Contrary to the ALERRT report and the timeline provided by the Department of Public Safety,” DPS troopers were at the door of Robb Elementary about three minutes after the shooter entered the building, McLaughlin said.
The mayor said dozens of DPS troopers were onsite during the standoff.
McLaughlin said his city is barred by DPS and local District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee from releasing records of the police response until their investigation into the massacre is complete.
“I’ve said it once and will say it again, the premature release of piecemeal information ... is a disservice to families who lost children or parents because the true facts need to come out once all investigations/reviews, which the City expects will be thorough and fair, are complete,” McLaughlin said.
Sources familiar with the DPS probe said the Uvalde police officer in question said in an initial interview with investigators that he saw someone in black — believed to be the shooter — outside the school before calling a supervisor to ask for permission to shoot. But in a subsequent interview, the officer said someone else told him it was a school employee, not the shooter, whom he had seen, according to the sources.