Investigators search for evidence outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, May 25, after an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.
Jae C. Hong / AP
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Jae C. Hong / AP
Investigators search for evidence outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, May 25, after an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.
Jae C. Hong / AP
AUSTIN, Texas – A police officer armed with a rifle tracks the gunman in Uvalde elementary school massacre walked towards the campus but did not open fire while waiting for the supervisor’s permission to shoot, according to a far-reaching critique. release wednesday on the tactical response to the May tragedy.
Some of the 21 victims at Robb Primary School, including 19 children, could have been “saved” on May 24 if they had received medical attention sooner while police waited more than an hour before 4th grade classroom break-in, an assessment of a training session. center at Texas State University for active shooting situations found.
The report is another damning assessment of how the police failure in action about the chances that could have saved lives in the deadliest school shooting in America since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
“A reasonable officer would treat this as a proactive situation and devise a plan to deal with the suspect,” reads the report published by the school’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training program University.
Report highlights bugs in Uvalde
The authors of the 26-page report said their findings were based on video obtained from the school, police cameras, statements from officers at the scene and statements from investigators. Among their findings:
– There didn’t seem to be any officers waiting in the hallway during filming to check if the classroom door was locked. The head of the Texas state police department also blamed officers at the scene for not checking the doors.
– Officers have “weapons (including rifles), armor (which may or may not be rated to prevent rifle bullets), training and backup. class doesn’t have these.”
– When officers finally entered the classroom at 12:50 p.m. — more than an hour after the shooting began — they were no better equipped to confront the gunman than they were at the time.
– The “effective troubleshooting order” never seemed to be established among the many law enforcement agencies that responded to the shooting.
The gunman, an 18-year-old man with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, entered the building at 11:33 a.m. Earlier, a Uvalde police officer, who reportedly did not identify, looked at saw the gunman carrying the weapon toward the entrance to the west hall. The employee asked permission from a supervisor to open fire, but the supervisor “either didn’t hear it or responded too late,” the report said.
According to the report, when the officer turned towards the gunman, he was inside “undiminished”.
The report is one of many fact-finding reviews released in the wake of the worst school shooting in Texas history. A committee set up by Texas lawmakers also interviewed more than 20 people, including officers present at the scene, behind closed doors for several weeks. It is unclear when they will publish their findings.
A top Texas official called the police response a “huge failure.”
It follows testimony last month in which Colonel Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told the state Senate that the police response was a “huge failure.” He specifically blamed Police Chief Pete Arredondo, saying that as commander at the scene, the Uvalde school police chief made “terrible decisions” and prevented officers from confronting the gunman earlier.
Arredondo has tried to defend his actions, telling the Texas Tribune that he does not consider himself the commander in charge of operations and that he believes someone has controlled the response of law enforcement. He said he didn’t have a police station or a school radio but he used his cell phone to call in tactical gear, snipers and classroom keys.
According to his report released on Wednesday, Arredondo and another Uvalde policeman spent 13 minutes in the school corridor while shooting to discuss tactical options, whether to use snipers. or not and how to enter the classroom window.
“They also discussed who had the keys, the check keys, the possibility of the doors being locked, and if the children and teachers were dying or dying,” the report read.
McCraw said police had enough officers and firepower at the scene of the Uvalde school massacre to stop the gunman three minutes after he entered the building, and they would find the classroom door where he was unlocked. if they care. check it out.
Arredondo’s attorney and a spokeswoman for the Uvalde police department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Arredondo quit his job at Uvalde Unified Independent School District and resignation as a city councilor last week.
Public leaders, including Texas Governor Greg Abbott, initially praised the police response in Uvalde. Abbott said officers reacted quickly and ran towards the sound of gunfire with “incredible courage” to bring down the killer, thereby saving lives. He then said that he had been deceived. In the days and weeks after the shooting, authorities gave conflicting and inaccurate accounts of what happened. The fallout has prompted retrials and rifts between localities and state authorities. On Tuesday, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin and State Senator Roland Gutierrez released a letter asking Abbott to transfer the management of the victim relief fund from the local prosecutor’s office to the Texas Department of Emergency Management. They wrote that they received numerous complaints about District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee, “including a failure to promptly make victim compensation resources available to those in need.”
Busbee’s office declined to comment Wednesday.
