Law enforcement officers responded so poorly to the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that the federal government took the extraordinary step of conducting an investigation into what went wrong.
While the 600-page report released by the Department of Justice on Thursday has not led to criminal charges or even firings, the imprimatur of the nation’s top law enforcement agency reaffirming the severe shortcomings of the local agencies that responded carried weight in the eyes of the heavily Latino, working-class community and the nation.
“We’ve been waiting for this because people in the community, they tell you, ‘Just move on,’” said Jesse Rizo, the uncle of 9-year-old Jacklyn Cazares, who was killed in the shooting. Rizo said the report confirms what his family believed all along — that the victims died a slow death while waiting for help that arrived too late.
In the end, the Justice Department found what other state investigations had already discovered: No one assumed command after a gunman entered the school and began indiscriminately shooting at students and teachers. A total of 21 people were killed on May 24, 2022, including 19 children, and 17 others were injured.
Had responding officers determined sooner that an active shooter was on campus, lives might have been saved, the report said.
“I told the families gathered last night what I hope is clear among the hundreds of pages and thousands of details in this report: Their loved ones deserved better,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday.
Key findings of DOJ report
- Poor coordination, training and execution of active shooter protocol contributed to a failure in law enforcement response.
- Police officers were erroneously taught that “an active shooter event can easily morph into a hostage crisis.”
- A lack of leadership led to a failure to recognize an active shooter situation and waiting too long to engage the gunman.
- At least six separate instances of gunfire, as well as officer injuries and the presence of victims, should have prompted officers to take steps to “immediately stop the killing.”
- Some families received incorrect information about whether their loved ones survived, and others were notified of deaths by personnel not trained to deliver such traumatic news.
The Justice Department seldom, if ever, conducts a “critical incident review” of a school shooting, but what happened in Uvalde was so egregious, this type of rigorous review “needed to be done,” said Jillian Snider, a former New York City police officer and adjunct lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
She said the results could have implications for school districts and police departments nationwide because it outlines recommendations and best practices for responding to mass shootings. These include having a clear and concise policy; obtaining state or national accreditation to adopt and maintain standardized policies and procedures; and creating and training a regional unified command and coordination group.
“It can’t be a mandate because these situations are so fluid and evolve so quickly,” Snider said. “But there should be guidance on identifying the scene for what it is, that’s task No. 1.”
The report, which caps 11 months of interviews and data collection from more than 30 organizations, slams law enforcement officers for failing to recognize there was an active shooter in their midst and for waiting far too long to engage the gunman.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the state Department of Public Safety said in statements Thursday that Texas has already adopted and implemented some of the Justice Department’s suggestions.
According to the DOJ, the Uvalde school district’s active shooter policy “was one of the few school district policies in Texas deemed viable” and covered crucial elements, including communication capabilities, coordination with other agencies and a clear chain of command.
However, none of that was followed as responding officials erroneously assumed they were dealing with a barricaded suspect, not an active shooter. This conflicts with most active shooter training, Snider said, and underscores the need for all agencies to be properly trained.
The Justice Department’s report adds to a growing body of findings damning the slow and chaotic actions of responding officers who lacked training and a clear command structure.
The shooting unfolded over the course of nearly one-and-a-half hours but only one responding officer attempted to approach the two classrooms that were under attack. The delay left wounded and terrified students and teachers trapped in the rooms, waiting to be rescued for 49 minutes while they heard officers gathered outside.
“And they were still waiting for another 27 minutes after that until officers finally entered the classrooms and killed the subject,” Garland said Thursday. “As the victims were trapped and waiting for help, many of their families were waiting outside the school, growing increasingly concerned about why law enforcement had not taken action to rescue their loved ones.”
The waiting never should have happened after the lessons learned in the Columbine High School shooting 25 years ago in Colorado, where it took officers 47 minutes to enter the building, marking a major shift in how law enforcement responds to mass shootings, Garland said.
“It is now widely understood by law enforcement agencies across the country that, in active shooter incidents, time is not on the side of law enforcement. Every second counts,” Garland said. “And the priority of law enforcement must be to immediately enter the room and stop the shooter with whatever weapons and tools officers have with them.”
The confusion that played out inside the two classrooms, blamed in part on a lack of multiagency coordination and communication, contributed to some injured children being loaded onto school buses instead of ambulances, the report said.
“Victims were moved away without precautions,” Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta said Thursday. “In the commotion, one adult victim was placed on a walkway on the ground — she died there.”
Mo Canady, who was a school resource officer at Columbine High School at the time of the 1999 mass shooting, said there have been multiple school shootings that could have resulted in a large number of casualties, but school resource officers stepped in and stopped the shooters.
“In all the years I’ve been doing this and as an SRO, it’s the most epic law enforcement failure I’ve seen in a school shooting situation,” said Canady, who is now the executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com.