The Justice Department recently released a lengthy report on the massacre of 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022.
The report concluded that teachers and students have more training about how to react to an active shooter than the nearly 400 law enforcement officers who converged on the school. No one was sure who was in charge. The children had been trained to be silent, and they were. The officers assumed that the silence meant that the shooter was barricaded in an empty classroom, despite numerous 911 calls by terrified students. For over an hour, no one confronted the killer. The mistakes cost lives. When the killer was dead, the medical response to the situation was bizarre. Dead children were placed in ambulances, while children with gunshot wounds were loaded onto school buses.
ProPublica and the Texas Tribune published and summarized the findings:
UVALDE, Texas — Law enforcement agencies across the country should immediately prioritize active shooter training, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday as he released a scathing report about the handling of the 2022 massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in which lives could have been saved if training protocols had been followed.
The Justice Department’s long-anticipated report about the shooting found that “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training” led to the bungled response, which Garland said should never have happened. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed on May 24, 2022.
“Had law enforcement agencies followed generally accepted practices in an active shooter situation and gone right after the shooter to stop him, lives would have been saved and people would have survived,” Garland said during a news conference on Thursday.
The report’s findings about the failure to follow protocol and the lack of sufficient training to prepare officers for a mass shooting largely mirrored the flaws revealed in a Texas Tribune, ProPublica and FRONTLINE investigation published last month that found that states require students and teachers to receive far more training to prepare them for a mass shooting than they require for the police. At least 37 states require schools to conduct active-shooter-related drills, nearly all on an annual basis. But Texas is the only state that mandates that all of its police officers complete repeated training, at least 16 hours every two years. That requirement was implemented after the Uvalde shooting.
Garland said the report was produced in an effort to offer lessons that would hopefully better prepare law enforcement across the country to respond to future mass shootings. It offered recommendations that included requiring all agencies in a region to train together and providing officers across the country with at least eight hours of active shooter training annually.
The vast majority of at least 380 officers from about two dozen local, state and federal agencies who responded to the school had never trained together, “contributing to difficulties in coordination and communication,” the report stated.
“Our children deserve better than to grow up in a country where an 18-year-old has easy access to a weapon that belongs on the battlefield, not in a classroom,” Garland said. “And communities across the country, and the law enforcement officers who protect them, deserve better than to be forced to respond to one horrific mass shooting after another. But that is the terrible reality that we face. And so it is the reality that every law enforcement agency in every community across the country must be prepared for.”
Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said in an interview that he appreciates the emphasis the Department of Justice placed on widespread active-shooter training. Still, Canady said he is frustrated that leaders have not already learned that “25-year-old lesson” after the shootings at Columbine High, Sandy Hook Elementary and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Since the 1999 Columbine shooting, law enforcement officers have been trained to prioritize stopping the shooter. The report stated that everything else, including officer safety, should be secondary, adding that efforts to engage the shooter “must be undertaken regardless of the equipment and personnel available.”
“We’ve got to understand what the priorities are and, quite frankly, I see there are not a lot of priorities greater than keeping students safe at school,” Canady said.
Kimberly Mata-Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed in the shooting, said she hopes the report’s findings lead to action, that “the failures end today and that local officials do what wasn’t done that day, do right by the victims and survivors of Robb Elementary: terminations, criminal prosecutions and that our state and federal government enacts sensible gun laws…”
The district attorney and the Texas Department of Public Safety have fought the release of records related to the shooting, prompting news organizations, including ProPublica and the Tribune, to sue. A Travis County district judge ruled in the newsrooms’ favor last month, but DPS appealed. The agency did not respond to requests for comment about the Justice Department’s report.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who initially praised the response and later said he was misled, released a statement thanking the Justice Department. He said the state has already adopted some of the recommended measures and would review others.
The report, which offers the most comprehensive account to date from authorities about the shooting, echoes many findings from a probe released by a state House committee two months after the shooting…
The report noted that the “misguided and misleading narratives, leaks, and lack of communication about what happened on May 24 is unprecedented and has had an extensive, negative impact on the mental health and recovery of the family members and other victims, as well as the entire community of Uvalde.”
The previous mayor of Uvalde requested the federal review days after the shooting when it became clear that the response was flawed. The review was led in part by Sheriff John Mina of Orange County, Florida, who was the incident commander during the 2016 Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando.
An outside review of that incident found that Florida officers, who waited three hours to take down the shooter, mostly followed best practices, although it stated that the law enforcement agencies in Orlando should update their training and policies.
In multiple after-action reviews, including the Pulse report, authors opted not to criticize significant law enforcement delays during mass shootings, according to an analysis of more than three dozen of these reports by ProPublica, the Tribune and FRONTLINE.
The Uvalde report was far more critical, finding failures in leadership, command and coordination.
It stated that officers wrongly treated the situation as a barricaded suspect incident instead of one in which a shooter was an active threat to children and teachers. Officers should “never” treat an active shooter with access to victims as a barricaded suspect — especially in a school, where there is a “high probability” of potential victims and innocent civilians being present, the report stated.
Officers had multiple indicators that should have made it clear they were facing an active shooter, including 911 calls from children and teachers pleading for help, a dispatcher’s announcement minutes after officers arrived that students were likely in the classroom with the shooter, and an Uvalde school police officer announcing that his wife had called to tell him she had been shot, according to the report.
Gupta condemned the medical response, saying that after police breached the classroom and killed the gunman, dead victims were placed in ambulances while children with bullet wounds were put on school buses. Many of those findings were revealed in a 2022 investigation by the Tribune, ProPublica and The Washington Post that determined medical responders did not know who was in charge and that two students and a teacher who later died still had a pulse when they were rescued from the school.
In its blistering criticism of responding officers, the report said that supervisors from various law enforcement agencies “demonstrated no urgency” in taking control of the incident, which exacerbated communication problems and added to overall confusion.
Uvalde school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who was listed as the incident commander in the district’s active-shooter plan, had the “necessary authority, training and tools” to lead the response but did not provide “appropriate leadership, command and control,” the report found. Arredondo could not be reached for comment Thursday through his attorney. He has previously defended his actions and those of others involved in the response.
Beyond that, no leader from any of the other responding agencies “effectively questioned the decisions and lack of urgency” demonstrated by Arredondo and Uvalde Police Department Acting Chief Mariano Pargas, who both arrived at the school within minutes of the first round of gunfire. The report listed Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco, Uvalde County Constables Emmanuel Zamora and Johnny Field, and an unidentified Texas Ranger as examples of such leaders.
“Responding officers here in Uvalde, who also lost loved ones and who still bear the emotional scars of that day, deserved the kind of leadership and training that would have prepared them to do the work that was required,” Garland said.
The report also found that key officers, including Pargas, had no active shooter or incident command training despite, in some instances, having decades of law enforcement experience. Nolasco, the sheriff, also had no active shooter training and “minimal” incident command training.
Great, so we have a “lengthy report” showing that water is wet. Like we didn’t know all of this a year and a half ago. And of course the recommendation is more funding for more training because, y’know, that’s never been tried before. [Insert face palm emoji here]
Well, clearly these officers in Uvalde had not been trained in what to do.
And were cowards.
In Nashville, the police charged. In, found the shooter, killed her.
In Uvalde, 370 officers stood around waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
unconscionable
You really think courage can be trained? Much less morality, decency, humanity? If anything, a lot of police training undoes whatever of that people had in the first place.
dienne, you obviously didn’t read the report. There is not one thing the authorities did correctly and to this day continue to inflict damage to the families and community.
11 Officers, including the school districts Chief and the acting city Chief of Police where in the building within 3 minutes of the shooter entering the building, then essentially stood around for 77 minutes while the shooter continued the massacre.
380 personnel from 24 different agencies deployed to the school. While some had active shooting training, none of the different agencies had ever trained together. And the biggest problem, nobody knew who was in charge. So yes, more training is needed.
IMO, that report should be required reading for all Superintendents, school officers, city chief of police, EMS, Hospitals, Governors, Mayors, information officers and personnel trained in trauma.
The report not only outlines what went wrong, but recommendations on how to fix it. Things people don’t think about like no ambulances could get to the school because the roads were blocked with responding personnel vehicles. The dead where taken to the hospital in the ambulances that could get through while the injured were put on school buses and sent to the reunification center.
And no, we didn’t know everything a year and half ago. The local authorities continue to stonewall the investigation and have put out a false narrative and refuse to correct it.
Thank you, Spewing Truth, for the clarifications.
It’s hard to imagine the chaotic scene when nearly 400 officers of the law converged, milked around, and no one knew who was in charge. The one local police officer tried to force his way in because his wife was the teacher and she called him. The other officers blocked him, took his gun away, and barred his entry. His wife died as all the officers dithered.
So you’re really telling me there was no protocol for chain of command when multiple jurisdictions respond to the same call? Really? And you think training is going to fix that?
And you’re really telling me that all 400 of those officers didn’t know that putting themselves in danger to protect children from dying was their job? And, again, you think training is going to fix that?
I don’t care enough to look into it, but I’m going to guess that Uvalde’s police training budget before the shooting was more than the library budget for the town, probably close to the education budget. And, as I hope you know, municipal budgets are zero-sum. So you guys are advocating for taking more money from schools and libraries to teach cops things they should already know. SMDH.
Dienne77,
Since you obviously are too lazy to read the report and have come to your own conclusions, let me correct your uneducated position.
I’ll quote directly from the report so as not to inject my own opinion.
“Over the course of the incident, overwhelming numbers of law enforcement personnel from different
agencies self-deployed to the school. Leadership on scene, however, had not established command and
control, to include an incident command post (ICP), staging area, or clear perimeter around the hallway
or the school. Thus, arriving personnel did not receive accurate updates on the situation or direction for
how to support the response efforts. Many arriving officers—based on inaccurate information on the
scene and shared over the radio or from observing the lack of urgency toward entering classrooms
111/112—incorrectly believed that the subject had already been killed or that UCISD PD Chief
Arredondo was in the room with the subject. As leaders from additional law enforcement agencies
arrived, including Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco, the lack of clear communication and command structure made coordination difficult. Emergency medical responders faced similar challenges as they deployed. They struggled to identify who was in charge, and ambulances encountered streets blocked by law enforcement vehicles.”
“Observation 5: UPD and UCSO appear to show budgetary and staffing shortages, which prevent
training opportunities.”
Uvalde and Governor Abbott’s Occupied Territory Eagle Pass Texas are 60 miles apart. Both resemble a war zone. Armed, Hostile, Aggressive Patrols out hunting “illegal migrants.” Harriet Tubman would feel right at home.
The racist attitudes in play were allowed to produce the massacre at Robb Elementary. Generations of unchecked colonial dehumanization.
I think that the claim was that racist attitudes led to the delay in taking action on the part of law enforcement officials.
I don’t get that inference from Kathy’s comment.
But I hear that a lot too, for example, from Roy’s comment, below. And it seems very speculative although people like to repeat it as obvious fact.
Flerp: I indulged in what I describe as a speculation based on my understanding of Nashville, not my understanding of Texas. I know that the policemen who responded to the Covenant shooting were likely to share the community generally with the victims of the assault since I know that side of town. I also know that there are certain places where emergency personnel are terrified to serve. These two things led to my speculation. I indicated that this was speculation by saying, “who knows?”
I would further add that the mind of individuals heading into a dangerous situation is not something you can understand. I used to volunteer as a firefighter, and I can tell you that there is a sort of autopilot that kicks in when an emergency occurs. You really rely on training to do the right thing
Diane, did you delete the comments from me, Bob, and Roy underneath Kathy’s comment?
The police responded to the Nashville Covenant School shooting in a way that has been praised by all. Was it their training? Was it because that part of town is a more generally stable community? Was it because the responders were defending children who looked like them?
Who knows?
The inaction of the officers at Uvalde is inexcusable.
Inexcusable…TRUE!
Another aspect of this human tragedy that’s all too common in this country:
From the Texas tribune, quote: The shooter turns 18, the legal age for purchasing a rifle in Texas, on May 16. That same day, he purchases a Daniel Defense AR-15-style rifle and 1,740 rounds of ammunition. The next day, he purchases a Smith & Wesson AR-15-style rifle and returns the following day to purchase an additional 375 rounds of ammunition. In total, he spent at least $4,896 on weapons, ammunition and accessories.
“I just shot my grandma in her head. Ima go shoot up a elementary school rn [right now].” Source: Texas Department of Public Safety – end quote
By some miracle, the shooter’s grandmother did survive the shooting to her face.
I found this Politico article to be little more than blaming the victims. There’s an entire list of bullet points as to what schools should do. It’s not the fault of schools that guns are as available as fast food take out. It’s not the school’s fault in this case that police were cowardly. “Hardening” schools isn’t what any of us should work toward; that’s a toxic non-response to the violence that many condone by failing to act.
*School police departments should hatch agreements with neighboring agencies that are likely to respond to critical emergencies to establish “mutually agreed upon clear jurisdictional responsibilities.”
Law enforcement, first responders, emergency management, and other municipal government agencies should coordinate with school districts to conduct preparedness exercises at least annually.*
School districts should upgrade or replace all doors (or locks) throughout their campuses so that doors can be locked from the inside. Schools should also use “universal access boxes”, a locked box that contains master keys near the entry points of school buildings, that can be used in emergencies by first responders and staff.
Schools must ensure campus buildings where there is student activity are retrofitted for Wi-Fi to ensure emergency alerts are received in a timely manner. School districts should also ensure their emergency alert systems are well understood by all staff, and offer both standard training and refresher training on the use of their emergency alert system to all employees.
School districts should also “meticulously consider, plan, and execute” if they decide to establish their own police department. That includes plans for budgeting, hiring, developing standard operating procedures, and student/community engagement.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-education/2024/01/22/what-schools-can-learn-after-uvalde-00136897
I strongly recommend that if you have not yet watched the December 2023 “Frontline” documentary, “Inside the Uvalde Response,” you will have a better understanding (even if you don’t read the report) as you will have a nearly real-time picture of what occurred that day. (There’s a link in this post–the orange one that says “ProPublica, the Tribune and FRONTLINE.” ) You will especially want to see interviews with the police, & you will see the time when approx. 4 officers did go down the hall where Rooms 11 & 112 were located, only to quickly retreat when the shooter remained active, & pieces of the wall came out from bullet force…& the officers quickly retreated, running back down the hall.
Not only should the report be required reading for all you listed, Spewing Truth, but this documentary should be required viewing.
Here is the link to the documentary.
https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-the-uvalde-response-documentary-investigation
Thx for the easy access, Spewing (& for your great comments). Not sure if this one also spotlights crucial points in the doc; the YouTube version does. As I wrote in my comment, the link (to the YouTube, as well) is provided in Diane’s post.
Jamie Raskin has published a helpful guide for his colleagues with suggestions for how to respond to mass shootings.
Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, represents Maryland’s 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House.
On the day Mike Johnson (R-La.) became House speaker, 18 Americans were massacred and 13 injured by a mass shooter in Lewiston, Maine — but Johnson’s comments the next day already showed deft command of what is obviously the GOP’s Mass Shooting Rhetorical First-Response Protocol. In the event that Johnson is deposed and another Republican is chosen as speaker and needs a primer — and for the benefit of all members of Congress following National Rifle Association message discipline — I have compiled this guide.
No paywall:
https://wapo.st/4bgUy4Q