‘Critical failures’ in Texas school massacre response: DOJ report

The US Justice Department (DOJ) found “critical failures” in the delayed police response to the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
A DOJ review released on Thursday found shortcomings in “leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training” that led to a confused police response and a delay in confronting the gunman at Robb Elementary School.
The report concluded officers should have immediately breached a classroom to stop the shooting, but instead treated the gunman like a barricaded subject and allowed him to remain in a classroom with victims for more than an hour.
The report details the results of the department’s “critical incident review” of the law enforcement response, a review which began days after the shooting at the request of Uvalde’s mayor.
The police response to the massacre came under intense criticism following reports that law enforcement waited in a hallway for more than an hour while the gunman remained holed up in a classroom and students made panicked 911 calls.
A US Border Patrol-led tactical team ultimately burst into the classroom and killed the gunman.
A July 2022 report from Texas lawmakers described an “atmosphere of chaos” at the scene and concluded that law enforcement “failed to prioritise saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety”.
A total of 376 officers – border guards, state police, city police, local sheriff departments and elite forces – responded to the massacre, a Texas state lawmakers’ report said in July 2022.
However, the situation was “chaotic” due to the officers’ “lackadaisical approach” to subduing the gunman, the DOJ report charged.
“The shooter was not killed until approximately 77 minutes after law enforcement first arrived,” it said.
The Justice Department review is aimed at providing an independent analysis and identifying lessons for authorities responding to other mass shootings.
The department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services led the assessment with the help of outside experts in emergency management, active shooter response and school safety.
Investigators “identified several critical failures”, the DOJ report said, and “the most significant failure was that the responding officers should have immediately recognised the incident as an active shooter situation”.
“In summary, the response to the May 24, 2022, mass casualty incident at Robb Elementary School was a failure,” said the critical incident review which is more than 550 pages long. “The painful lessons detailed in this report are not meant to exacerbate an already tragic situation.”
“As a consequence of failed leadership, training and polices, 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,” Attorney-General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
School shootings have become a regular occurrence in a country where about a third of adults own a firearm and regulations on purchasing even powerful military style rifles are lax.
Polls show most voters favour stricter controls on the use and purchase of firearms. However, the gun-ownership lobby is highly influential and the courts have ruled that the constitutional right to bear arms applies to private owners (see accompanying report above).
Investigators compiling Thursday’s report, which does not name the shooter, collected and reviewed “more than 14,100 pieces of data and documentation, including polices, training logs, body camera and CCTV video footage”.