Some of the 21 victims at Robb Elementary School, including 19 children, likely “could have been saved” on May 24 if they had received medical attention sooner, while police waited more than an hour before breaching the fourth-grade classroom. found center at the University of Texas for active shooter situations. The report is yet another damning assessment of how police failed to act on opportunities that could have saved lives in what has become the deadliest US school shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012. “A reasonable officer would have considered this situation active and devised a plan to engage the suspect,” read the report released by the university’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training program. WATCHES | Survivors, parents of victims call for gun control:
Survivors of mass shootings, families demand action on gun control
WARNING: This video contains graphic details. A fourth-grade survivor of the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting was among the survivors and parents of the victims who testified before the US Congress, demanding action on gun control. The authors of the 26-page report said their findings were based on video taken from the school, police body cameras, testimony from officers at the scene and statements from investigators. Among their findings:
It appeared that no officer waiting in the hallway during the shooting ever tested to see if the classroom door was locked. The head of the Texas State Police also blamed the officers on the scene for not checking the doors. Officers had “weapons (including rifles), body armor (which may or may not have been rated to stop weapons), training and reserves. Casualties in the ranks had none of these things.” 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 deal with the gunman than they had been up to that point. “Effective incident command” never appears to have been established among the multiple law enforcement agencies that responded to the shooting.
The gunman, an 18-year-old man with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, entered the building at 11:33 a.m. the entrance of the west hall. The officer asked a supervisor for permission to open fire, but the supervisor “either did not listen or responded very slowly,” the report said. When the officer turned back to the gunman, he had already gone inside “uncertain,” according to the report. WATCHES | Delayed response was a mistake, police admit:
Texas police admit ‘wrong decision’ to delay response to school shooting
Officials say police in Uvalde, Texas, made the “wrong decision” to wait more than an hour in a school hallway before confronting a gunman barricaded inside a classroom of children. The report is one of multiple fact-finding reviews launched in the wake of the worst school shooting in Texas history. A panel formed by Texas lawmakers also interviewed more than 20 people, including officers who were on the scene behind closed doors for several weeks. It is unclear when they will release their findings. It follows testimony last month in which Col. Stephen McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told the state Senate that the police response was a “gross failure.” He particularly blamed Chief Pete Arredondo, saying that as the commander on the scene the Uvalde schools police chief made “terrible decisions” and prevented officers from dealing with the gunman sooner. Arredondo tried to defend his actions, telling the Texas Tribune that he did not consider himself the head of operations and that he assumed someone else had taken control of the law enforcement response. He said he didn’t have the police and campus radios, but used his cell phone to call for tactical gear, a sniper and classroom keys. According to the report released Wednesday, Arredondo and another Uvalde police officer spent 13 minutes in the school hallway during the shooting discussing tactical options, whether to use snipers and how to get into classroom windows. “They also discussed who has the keys, test keys, the possibility of the door being locked, and whether children and teachers are dying or have died,” the report states. 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 would have found the classroom door where he was locked unlocked if they had bothered to check. An attorney for Arredondo and a spokeswoman for the Uvalde Police Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Arredondo is on leave from his job with the Uvalde Unified Independent School District and resigned from his position as a city councilor last week.
