determine serious “systemic failures” in the reaction of the Police

A chaotic scene marked by serious errors by the public force contributed to the number of victims in the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which 21 people died. This was concluded by an investigation by the House of Representatives of that state.

“Apart from the attacker, the Committee did not find any ‘villains’ in the course of its investigation (…) Instead, we found systemic flaws and egregious poor decision-making,” the document said.

The investigation exposes various negligence.

1. No one took command of the operation

According to the 77-page report, a few minutes after the shooting began, 376 agents attended the scene, including state and local police, sheriffs and even 149 Border Patrol agents, since the city is located a few kilometers from Mexico. But none of them quickly intervened to stop the slaughter.

The uniformed officers took more than an hour before confronting and killing the aggressor: Salvador Ramos, 18 years old.

The reason? According to the report, “law enforcement officers did not adhere to their active shooter training and did not prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.”

Several officers interviewed by the committee explained that they did not know who was in charge of the operation, while others indicated that the school district’s Police Chief, Pete Arredondo, was in charge.

However, the report highlights that given the lack of response or coordination on the part of Arredondo, neither did any other authority offer to lead the response to the shooting. Not even the federal or state agents, who according to the investigators, were better prepared than the local force to act in the face of this type of violent incident.

“Despite an apparent atmosphere of chaos, high-ranking officers from other responding agencies did not approach (Arredondo) or anyone else perceived to be in command to point out the lack and need for a command post.” , or offer that specific assistance”, underlined the inquiry.

A video published on July 12 by the newspaper ‘Austin American-Statesman’ supports this line of investigation, as it showed that the agents took refuge in a corridor for 77 minutes before breaking into the two classrooms attacked and exchanging shots with the attacker.

Leadership vacuum could have contributed to loss of life

Another body camera video from Sgt. Eduardo Canales, head of the city’s SWAT team, showed the officer approaching classrooms when shots rang out at 11:37 a.m.

A minute later, Canales said: “Dude, we have to get in there. We have to get in there, he keeps shooting. We have to get in there. Another officer could be heard saying “DPS is sending their people.”

Finally, 72 minutes later, at 12:50 pm, Border Patrol agents stormed the classrooms and shot the shooter without asking Arredondo for authorization, but by then it was too late for the lives that could have been saved, the investigation highlights. .

“The leadership vacuum could have contributed to the loss of life, as injured victims waited over an hour for help, and the attacker continued to fire his weapon sporadically.”

2. Children’s Desperate 911 Calls Failed to Get a Coordinated Response

Another of the serious errors highlighted by the legislators in charge of the investigation points to the fact that the children in the classrooms where the multiple murder occurred called 911 on at least six occasions and asked for help.

All while the agents were in the next hallway where they were trapped with their attacker.

However, no one ensured that first responders making key decisions inside the building knew about those emergency calls or “received information that students and teachers had survived the initial burst of shooting.”

“No one in command analyzed this information to recognize that the attacker was preventing seriously injured victims from obtaining medical care,” the report said.

3. Waiting for a master key that would not have been necessary

The investigation underlines that Arredondo tried to find a master key to open the classrooms.

So did the commander of a Border Patrol tactical team that waited for both a bulletproof shield and a skeleton key. But perhaps it would not even have been necessary to enter, since no one checked first if the doors were indeed closed, the report concludes.

“It’s disgusting … They are cowards,” said Michael Brown, whose 9-year-old son was in the school cafeteria the day of the shooting and survived.

For his part, Democratic legislator Joe Moody, who was part of the investigation committee, assured that the massive failures in the application of the law in Uvalde are a painful reality.

“It is difficult to hear that there were multiple systemic failures because we want to tell ourselves that the systems work (…) We want to tell ourselves that this will not happen again. That is simply not true,” Moody said.

4. “Lax” surveillance at school

The report also found that there was “lax policing” on the school campus because despite the frequency with which security alerts were issued, as a result of close police confrontations with human smugglers transporting undocumented immigrants, these measures did not were being applied in the educational center.

The committee found that staff at Robb Elementary School often left the center’s doors unlocked due to a shortage of keys for all the teachers.

There was an “unfortunate culture of noncompliance by school personnel” when it came to leaving exterior and interior doors unlocked or left open. The gunman easily entered the school through an open door.

The five-foot-high exterior fence around the school was also not enough to keep the attacker out.

What comes after the investigations?

The findings had at least one immediate effect: Lt. Mariano Pargas, an officer with the Uvalde Police Department who was the city’s interim police chief during the massacre, was placed on administrative leave.

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said an investigation would be launched to determine if Pargas should have taken command of the scene. He also revealed for the first time that some officers had left the institution since the shooting, but did not provide an exact number.

Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Republican who also chaired the committee, said at a news conference Sunday, July 17, that the goal of the investigation is to provide a factual basis for lawmakers to make future policy changes, with in order to make schools safer.

Burrows noted that the scope of the lawmakers’ investigation did not exactly delve into the individual responsibility of the agents, so further investigation to determine it should be left to other agencies.

“If someone didn’t follow through on their training, if someone knew there were victims that were being killed or dying and didn’t do more, I think those agencies are going to have to hold those officers accountable,” Burrows said.

This is the first time that errors have been pointed out by state and federal authorities, since until now the investigations had pointed to the chief of the school district police, Pete Arredondo, as responsible for the delay of the agents when breaking into in the classroom.

The investigating committee concluded that there was “a general indifferent approach” on the part of the authorities.

With Reuters, AP, EFE and local media