DOJ Report on Uvalde Shooting Cites 'Cascading Failures'

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Facts

  • A US Dept. of Justice (DOJ) report released Thursday states that police responding to the deadly school shooting in May 2022 in Uvalde, Texas, 'demonstrated no urgency' in addressing the shooting and failed to treat the incident as an active shooter situation.1
  • The 600-page DOJ report is the most comprehensive federal account of the police response to the shooting at Robb Elementary School, where 19 students and two teachers were killed.2
  • The report describes how it took law enforcement officers 77 minutes before they breached the door and killed the shooter because the incident was being treated as a 'barricaded suspect' situation instead of as an active shooting. This is determined to be the primary failing of the response.3
  • Police Chief Pete Arredondo, then-acting Uvalde Police Chief Mariano Pargas, and Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco are criticized in the report for failing to take command or control of the situation, leading to a lack of coordination and urgency between organizations.4
  • The medical response and crime scene investigation after the shooting were also criticized, with the report calling the medical response chaotic and disorganized. Critical evidence in the case was also reported to have been ignored by investigators, with the investigation hampered by too many people contaminating the scene of the crime.4
  • To create the report, the DOJ visited Uvalde nine times and spent 54 days in the small Texas town — conducting more than 260 interviews with people from more than 30 organizations involved with the response and the following investigation.5

Sources: 1New York Post, 2Associated Press, 3New York Times, 4CNN and 5ABC News.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by ABC News. The transparency in this report is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, it will give families the answers they need to move forward and for the right people to be held accountable for this tragedy. Law enforcement failed that day but there's a chance to learn from its mistakes to prevent a repeat incident.
  • Narrative B, as provided by CNN. While this is the most comprehensive effort to provide answers to what happened at Robb Elementary, more is still needed. The District Attorney has not finished her assessment and has not decided whether any law enforcement can be criminally charged. No one has apologized or taken accountability for the response to the shooting. These families deserve more.