Review to detail police actions as outrage mounts

The Justice Department said on Sunday that it was launching a probe into Texas cops’ handling of the Uvalde school shooting, in which 21 people were killed as officers waited more than an hour before storming a classroom.

The DOJ said Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin requested the investigation amid increasing criticism of local officers’ actions during Tuesday’s massacre at Robb Elementary School.

“The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law-enforcement actions and responses that day and to identify lessons and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events,” the department said.

“As with prior Justice Department after-action reviews of mass shootings and other critical incidents, this assessment will be fair, transparent and independent. The Justice Department will publish a report with its findings at the conclusion of its review.”

Fierce criticism

Authorities have come under mounting criticism for their delayed response as gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, fatally shot 19 fourth-graders and two teachers in adjoining classrooms at the school.

Police said Uvalde officers who initially entered the building were fired upon by Ramos and retreated, with the killer then remaining barricaded for 78 minutes as he continued slaughtering the innocents.

Ramos wasn’t stopped until an off-duty Customs and Border Protection agent rushed to the school and killed him himself, reports have said.

On Sunday, Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez said one shot girl bled out while waiting for help and might have been saved had authorities acted sooner.

Pete Arredondo, police chief for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, has been among the officials facing criticism and has been holed up in his home with a police guard to keep reporters away.

“Pete Arredondo is a coward,” a neighbor Lydia Torres has told The Post. “He didn’t do his job. He failed the children.”

But Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has come to cops’ defense.

“The second-guessing and finger-pointing among state and local law enforcement is destructive, distracting and unfair,” the Republican tweeted Friday. “Complex scenarios require split-second decisions. Easy to criticize with 20-20 hindsight.”

His comments appeared to have done little to quell the outrage.

The Texas Rangers are currently leading the local investigation into the mass shooting.

The DOJ has probed other high-profile mass shootings.

After a teenage white supremacist shot dead 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket May 14, US Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a statement saying the department was investigating that attack as a hate crime and an “act of racially motivated violent extremism.’’

Police said the gunman, Payton Gendron, 18, specifically targeted black residents when he opened fire inside the Tops Friendly Market.