Police inaction becomes focus of investigation

The actions — or more notably, the inaction — of a school district police chief and other law enforcement officers has become the center of the investigation into last week’s shocking school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

The attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead in a fourth grade classroom was the nation’s deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade, and for three days police offered a confusing and sometimes contradictory timeline that stirred public anger and frustration.

By Friday, authorities acknowledged that students and teachers repeatedly begged 911 operators for help while the police chief told more than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway at Robb Elementary School. Officials said he believed that the suspect was barricaded inside adjoining classrooms and that there was no longer an active attack.

The chief ’s decision — and the officers’ apparent willingness to follow his directives against established activeshooter protocols — prompted questions about whether more lives were lost because officers did not act faster to stop the gunman.

The delay in confronting the shooter — who was inside the school for more than an hour — could lead to discipline, lawsuits and even criminal charges against police.

“In these cases, I think the court of public opinion is far worse than any court of law or police department administrative trial,” said Joe Giacalone, a retired New York police sergeant.

“This has been handled so terribly on so many levels.”

As the gunman fired at students, law enforcement officers from other agencies urged the Uvalde School District police chief, Pete Arredondo, to let them move in because children were in danger, two law enforcement officials said on condition of anonymity.

Prosecutors will have to decide whether Arredondo’s decision and the officers’ inaction constituted a tragic mistake or criminal negligence, said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who is a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Criminal charges are rarely pursued against law enforcement in school shootings. A notable exception was the former school resource officer accused of hiding during the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead. Scot Peterson is scheduled to go to trial in September on charges including child neglect resulting in great bodily harm. He has said he did the best he could at the time.

Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images People place tributes Friday at a memorial for the victims of the mass shooting attack that killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.