‘Cascading failures’
Cops’ do-nothing response to Uvalde shooting ripped by feds
The complete failure of the police response to the Robb Elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, was laid bare Thursday in a report from the Department of Justice.
The long-awaited report highlighted “cascading failures” by officers on the scene, including the failure to establish a command post and the cowardice of waiting more than an hour to confront the shooter.
“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,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
An 18-year-old gunman, Salvador Ramos, killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers inside Robb Elementary. The first officers arrived on the scene three minutes after Ramos broke into the school.
Those 11 cops, members of the Uvalde Police Department and the school district’s own police force, identified the classroom where Ramos was killing children. When they approached, Ramos fired at the door, and two officers were struck by shrapnel. They then retreated from the room.
That would be the last time officers approached the door until around 70 minutes later when a Border Patrol tactical team stormed in and killed Ramos, according to the Justice Department’s 575page report. Ramos’ autopsy has never been publicly released.
“An active shooter with access to victims should never be considered and treated as a barricaded subject,” the Justice Department report reads, with “never” emphasized in italics.
The report includes terrified 911 calls from children inside the classroom, including one begging, “I don’t want to die. My teacher is dead.”
There were 376 officers on the scene by the end of the shooting, but none of them ever took command of the situation. After the shooting, Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo deflected blame and denied he was in charge, but the Justice Department determined he was indeed the “de facto on scene commander.” Arredondo was eventually fired.
The Justice Department’s report is the latest in a long list of damning assessments of the police response in Uvalde. In July 2022, two months after the shooting, the Texas House issued perhaps the strongest rebuke.
“At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training,” the lawmakers wrote, “and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.”
The family of a Long Island-raised Israeli-American man who is being held hostage by Hamas is pleading with those in power to help bring 22-year-old Omer Neutra back home.
Neutra’s parents sat down with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell after standing on the border with Hamas-run Gaza “so close to Omer,” his mother, Orna Neutra, said at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. It was there that they and the families of other hostages held a vigil to mark 100 days passed since Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel and abducted nearly 240 people, including many civilians.
“We are pressing for action from anybody that we see,” his father, Ronen Neutra, told Mitchell. “Whether it’s the State Department or FBI or Israeli authorities.”
“It’s been too long, it’s too dangerous,” agreed Orna Neutra.
Many hostages’ families are now pushing for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, which promptly responded to the attacks with an offensive.
“Whatever they’ve achieved so far, they can continue doing that after they bring [the hostages] out alive,” said Orna Neutra.
The Neutras, who are both descended from Holocaust survivors, immigrated to the U.S. from Israel in 2000.
Neutra enlisted in the IDF as part of a gap year before starting college. Though his parents were aware of the risks, Orna Neutra said they “could never imagine this situation.”
“He was in his tank with his team and they were ambushed” on the border of Gaza on Oct. 7, said his mother. “They forced them out and they took them.”
Hamas attacked Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 at the Nova music festival and in their homes, leaving an estimated 1,200 dead. While some hostages have been released amid brief ceasefires, more than 130 are still being held captive.
Over 24,000 Palestinians have been killed as part of the responding offensive, according to Gaza’s health ministry.