The Department of Justice released on Thursday a report finding "cascading failures" in law enforcement's response to the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two staff members were killed in 2022.
The lengthy report, extending over 600 pages, also concluded that police officers "demonstrated no urgency" in setting up a command post and didn't treat the situation as an active shooter one.
The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022 — and the response by officials in the hours and days after — was a failure. As a consequence of failed leadership, training, and policies, 33 students and three of their teachers — many of whom had been shot — were trapped in a room with an active shooter for over an hour as law enforcement officials remained outside," reads a paragraph of a statement released by Attorney General Merrick Garland along with the report.
"The victims and survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School deserved better," he added.
At the time of the shooting, Robb Elementary School had some 600 students, almost 90% of them Latinos. According to 2020 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, almost 82% of the town's 15,200 residents identified as Latino. The shooter himself was 19-year-old Salvador Ramos, of Latino descent.
Police officers arrived in the scene less than three minutes after Ramos, but fled after he started shooting from inside a classroom and shrapnel hit two officers. Footage that surfaced in the following months showed police waiting in the hallway while Ramos was inside the classroom.
The images caused generalized uproar as it showed police refusing to engage for about an hour. Ramos was killed 84 minutes after arriving at the school.
"They just didn't act. They just didn't move," Uvalde County Commissioner Ronald Garza said after the footage was released. "I just don't know what was going through those policemen's minds that tragic day, but ... there was just no action on their part."
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw had claimed that the school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo treated the situation not as an active school shooting but as a barricaded subject, and that was the reason why there was no response.
"An active shooter with access to victims should never be considered and treated as a barricaded subject," the report says.
The Associated Press reported that at least five officers lost their jobs, including "two Department of Public Safety officers and Uvalde's school police chief, Pete Arredondo, who was the on-site commander during the attack."
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