by A Justice Department investigation released Thursday found that a near-total failure in police protocols hampered the response to the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 21 people dead, but the most serious mistake was officials’ reluctance to confront the killer during the first minutes of the attack.
The department blamed “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policies and training” for the passive and delayed law enforcement response that allowed an 18-year-old gunman with a semi-automatic rifle to remain within a couple of fourth grade connected classrooms. at Robb Elementary School for 77 minutes before he was confronted and killed.
The “most significant failure,” investigators concluded, was the fateful decision by local police officials to classify the incident as a barricaded standoff rather than an “active shooter” scenario, which would have demanded instant and aggressive action. regardless of the danger to those responding or the lack of adequate weapons to confront the gunman.
The nearly 600-page report largely reflects the findings of a state investigation released last July. The federal report, compiled from 260 interviews and nearly 15,000 documents and videos, represents the most comprehensive assessment of a wave of killings that helped spur passage of new federal gun control legislation and continues to haunt a community traumatized by the killing and the insufficiency of the police. answer.
Some of the families of the dead and injured, who were informed of the findings hours before the report was published, expressed mixed feelings about it. Some expected the department to file federal criminal charges against any local officials deemed responsible for the confusing and ineffective response.
The department offered a list of detailed recommendations. They included requiring compliance with guidelines, created after the Columbine school shooting in 1999, that call for neutralizing the gunman immediately in any situation where an active shooter may be present.
Officers responding to such a situation “must be prepared” to risk their lives to protect their communities, the report said, even if they have inadequate firepower and are armed only with a standard handgun to confront a gunman with a gun. much more powerful. powerful weapon.
“The victims and survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School deserved better,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement issued before a news conference scheduled in Uvalde. “The response of officials in the hours and days after” the killings, he added, “was a failure.”
The report, known as a critical incident review and initiated 20 months ago at the request of the city’s former mayor, Don McLaughlin, also found fault with local and state officials who provided incomplete and sometimes inaccurate information to students’ families and News. media.
Local District Attorney Christina Mitchell has been conducting an investigation to determine whether state criminal charges should be filed.
Mr. Garland and Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta met Wednesday with the families of some of the students who were killed or injured, as well as survivors, before releasing the report.
The report includes a long to-do list for systemic improvements, such as establishing a clear chain of command structure at mass shooting sites and more strictly adhering to school safety protocols.
For some of the Uvalde families, like the parents of one of the survivors, Noah Orona, the findings supported what they had been saying since the shooting. “It’s not just us saying, ‘Someone failed,’ but now the federal government has come in and said, ‘Hey, this was a colossal failure,’” said Oscar Orona, the boy’s father.
Some of the report’s recommendations have already been implemented and several Uvalde police officers, including school district police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo and interim Uvalde police chief Mariano Pargas, have already been fired or They have resigned.
The department’s conclusions echoed the findings of a July 2022 investigation by a special committee of the Texas House of Representatives. Their report chronicles a perfect storm of dysfunction and circumstances that led to the delayed response, despite the presence of more than 370 local, state and federal law enforcement officers, including federal border agents who ultimately stormed a classroom and killed the gunman
That state report cited a number of non-law enforcement factors that contributed to the slow response, including the remote location of Uvalde, a small town of 14,000, and its proximity to a border crossing with Mexico that has been a Popular gateway for illegal immigration. .
Poor internet service and poor cell phone coverage “led to teachers inconsistently receiving closure notice,” the Texas House report found. Additionally, the frequency of so-called “rescue” alarms (pursuits involving migrants trying to escape from Border Patrol agents) “contributed to a lower sense of vigilance when responding to security alerts,” according to state investigators.
The state committee found no “villain” other than the shooter, but “found systemic failures and egregiously poor decision-making.”
The failures extended far beyond the response on the day of the killings, reflecting an all-too-familiar pattern of missed opportunities found in many previous mass shootings, including a racially motivated supermarket massacre in Buffalo carried out by another 18-year-old. years. days before the shooting in Texas.
There were significant signs that Uvalde’s killer, a troubled and harassed loner nicknamed “school shooter” by some acquaintances, posed a mortal threat.
He had recently dropped out of high school and used money saved from fast-food restaurant jobs to buy an arsenal that included two semi-automatic weapons, conversion devices used to increase the rate of fire, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. In the days before the shooting, he made threatening comments to his co-workers and spoke openly about his suicidal depression, investigators found.
At 11:10 a.m. on May 24, 2022, he shot his grandmother in the face and then texted a 15-year-old girl in Germany he met online that he planned to “shoot up” an elementary school. .
His grandmother survived. The gunman then drove his pickup truck to the nearby school, crashed into a ditch, jumped a fence, entered through an open door and began shooting indiscriminately at the young students gathered in the pair of connected classrooms.
Law enforcement officers arrived almost immediately and approached the classrooms. The shooter shot them and they retreated down a hallway. For more than an hour, local, state and federal officials, including U.S. Border Patrol agents, discussed how to address the situation and made the fateful decision to classify the incident as a barricade standoff, requiring negotiation, in instead of active participation. -Shooter scenario, which would require an immediate and aggressive response.
Justice Department officials initially said their investigation, led by the department’s community-oriented policing office, would take about six months. The investigation turned out to be more complex and obtaining information more difficult than they originally thought, according to an official familiar with the situation.
