Uvalde investigation details law enforcement’s ‘systemic failures’ in school shooting response

A committee of Texas state lawmakers investigating the police response to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde released a 77-page report detailing “systemic failures” and “poor decision making” from those involved, according to a report.

The Texas Tribune reported that it has reviewed the committee’s report that detailed how the gunman’s family was unable to recognize warning signs, how the school district strayed from its safety plan and how police disregarded their own active-shooter training.  

A force of 376 law enforcement officers responded to the shooting, according to the report. However, the report found there was no clear leadership once they amassed at the scene, and responders lacked basic communications and necessary urgency to take down the gunman.

The investigation criticized the inaction of state and federal law enforcement, who made up the majority of responding officers. The report states there were 91 state police offers, 149 from U.S. Border Patrol, 25 Uvalde city police officers, 16 sheriff’s deputies and 5 officers from the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police.

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Until now, much of the criticism has been directed at former Uvalde schools police Chief Pete Arredondo, who acted as incident commander during the massacre.

The committee said law enforcement failed to quickly confront the suspect, having retreated to safety after taking gunfire and waiting for backup. 

“They failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety,” the report said.

The committee stated that other better trained officers and law enforcement agencies failed in taking leadership from Arredondo over his inaction at the scene.

“In this crisis, no responder seized the initiative to establish an incident command post,” the committee report said. “Despite an obvious atmosphere of chaos, the ranking officers of other responding agencies did not approach the Uvalde CISD chief of police or anyone else perceived to be in command to point out the lack of and need for a command post, or to offer that specific assistance.”

The committee did recognize that some individual officers acted without instruction to try to reach the shooter, and may have been able to if they had proper back up.

The committee report also found that the school, despite having proper safeguards in place, was complacent in its implementation, with witnesses telling the committee that staff often left doors unlocked and propped them open with rocks, wedges or magnets, partly due to a shortage of keys.

The Texas House of Representatives committee invited family of the 19 students and two teachers killed in the May 24 massacre to review the lawmaker’s findings. The committee also planned to show relatives the school surveillance video that showed police milling about in a hallway for more than an hour before they eventually kill the gunman.

This is a developing story; check back for updates.