DOJ opens investigation into police response during Uvalde school shooting
The Department of Justice will launch an investigation into if and how local police failed to stop or slow the massacre in an Uvalde, Texas, elementary school last week.
“At the request of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, the U.S. Department of Justice will conduct a Critical Incident Review of the law enforcement response to the mass shooting,” officials said Sunday.
Nineteen fourth-grade students and two teachers were fatally shot Tuesday inside their Robb Elementary School classroom as police waited outside.
“The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events,” the DOJ said.
The report will be released at the end.
After days of changing stories, Steven McCraw, the Texas Department of Public Safety director, said Friday that the commander on the scene thought “there were no more children at risk,” meaning they had time to wait around for a key to get into the classroom where 18-year-old Salvador Ramos had barricaded himself and his victims.
“With the benefit of hindsight… of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision,” McCraw said.
At the same time the commander decided to wait, at least two children trapped inside were calling 911 and begging for help, according to officials.
Ramos fired at least 100 rounds inside the classroom just after 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, McCraw said. At 12:36, more than an hour later, a child called 911 for the second time that morning.
“Please send the police now,” she said twice.
At 12:50 p.m., police finally unlocked the door and shot and killed Ramos.
Criticism of the police response has come far and wide and from both sides of the aisle.
“These mistakes may have led to the passing away of these children as well,” Democratic state Sen. Roland Gutierrez said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
“The first responder that they eventually talked to said that their child likely bled out,” Gutierrez said. “In that span of 30 or 40 minutes extra, that little girl might have lived.”
Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw called it “embarrassing” that it took officers so long to take action.
“I know better than most, not to necessarily judge the person who’s walking through the breach and is in that moment in the arena, but it does seem clear protocols weren’t followed,” he said Sunday on “State of the Union.” “So let’s let the investigation play out, but it’s hard not to see how someone doesn’t get fired for this, for these very, very bad calls.”
The official story on the police response has changed daily since Tuesday, jumping from a law enforcement officer “engaging” with Ramos before he got into the school to an exchange of gunfire to no shots fired.
Outside the school, while Ramos was inside shooting children, officers focused on parents trying to get in, with U.S. Marshals putting at least one mother in handcuffs, according to the Wall Street Journal.
