Uvalde school shooting 2022: Report finds “critical failures”

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed when a teenage gunman went on a rampage at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas in May 2022.

Footage of the police response at the time caused anger as it showed officers running away from gunshots while children and teachers were left to die in their classrooms.

The 77-minute clip showed officers rushing into the school just minutes after the rampage began, but rather than confront him, they stopped and lingered – with one cop in a helmet and vest even seen using a wall-mounted hand sanitiser and checking his phone.

The footage also showed the cops’ fruitless hunt for keys to the classroom — which turned out to not even have been locked.

A long-awaited report released by the US Justice Department on Thursday found there was “a great deal of confusion, miscommunication, a lack of urgency and a lack of incident command”.

“The most significant failure was that the responding officers should have immediately recognised the incident as an active shooter situation,” the report, released 20 months after the shooting, read.

It noted police officers treated the situation as a “barricaded subject scenario” and waited 77 minutes before eventually confronting and killing the shooter.

The first officers arrived at the school and approached a classroom however they later retreated after being hit by shrapnel, the report stated.

Over 40 minutes after the gunman entered the school, officers moved towards the gunfire “outside the classroom doors but did not make entry”.

“In summary, the response to the May 24, 2022, mass casualty incident at Robb Elementary School was a failure,” the report read.

“The painful lessons detailed in this report are not meant to exacerbate an already tragic situation.”

Chaos and confusion

Speaking after the report’s release, US Attorney-General Merrick Garland said “chaos and confusion” defined law enforcement’s response to the shooting and its aftermath.

“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.”

“The victims and survivors should never have been trapped with that shooter for more than an hour as they waited for their rescue.”

Mr Garland also pointed out failure in leadership and command, saying none of the law enforcement leaders “established an incident command structure to provide timely direction, control, and co-ordination”.

“These failures may also have been influenced by policy and training deficiencies at responding law enforcement agencies,” he said.

Addressing the aftermath of the shooting, Mr Garland said some injured victims were put on buses after the massacre and weren’t brought to the attention of medics.

“Some families were told that their family members had survived when they had not,” he continued.

“And victims, families, and community members struggled to receive timely and accurate information about what had occurred.”

In October 2022, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District said it was suspending the small police force that has responsibility for safety and security in the handful of public schools under its authority.

“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,” Mr 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 a majority of 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.

In June 2022, reform advocates secured a limited victory with the passage of legislation that demands enhanced background checks for younger buyers and provides federal cash for states introducing “red flag” laws that allow courts to temporarily remove weapons from those considered a threat.

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”.