State of Texas: DOJ report finds law enforcement failures during and after Uvalde school shooting

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — The Department of Justice took a “minute-by-minute” approach in its investigation of law enforcement’s response to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde. Its nearly 600-page report describes chaos, confusion and ignorance — all aspects that the Texas House of Representatives found within their own investigation released just weeks after the 2022 mass shooting.

RELATED: New DOJ report finds ‘cascading failures’ in law enforcement response to Uvalde school massacre

Thursday morning, the U.S. Department of Justice released its highly anticipated critical incident review of the active shooting at Robb Elementary School that killed 19 students and two teachers on May 24, 2022. The document reveals themes related to leadership failures on the day the Uvalde elementary shooting took place, as well as a lack of communication, collaboration and cooperation in the days and months following.

“I think that the DOJ report goes a long way in validating our concerns about the lack of communication, the lack of leadership,” said State Representative Joe Moody, vice chair of the Texas House of Representatives’ Investigation Committee on the Robb Elementary Shooting.

The House’s 77-page document uncovered the miscommunication among officers which led to a delay in stopping the shooter. “The scene was chaotic, without any person obviously in charge or directing the law enforcement response,” it reads.

KXAN’s coverage of the Uvalde school shooting

According to the DOJ report, the lack of structure not only contributed to the confusion and chaos during the incident, but also affected law enforcement’s post-incident response to preserving the integrity of the crime scene.

Only two law enforcement officers in leadership positions with the main responding agencies had training in Incident Command Systems (ICS) and National Incident Management Sytems (NIMS), according to the DOJ report.

Those two officers were Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who had completed 32 hours of training, and the Texas Department of Public Safety South Texas Regional Director Victor Escalon, who arrived shortly before the classroom was entered, had completed 88 hours, according to the report.

“In critical incidents, particularly events involving multiple jurisdictions and disciplines, the understanding and use of NIMS and ICS are essential to the successful sharing of information and coordination of resources, tactics, and investigations,” the DOJ report states.

New DOJ report finds ‘cascading failures’ in law enforcement response to Uvalde school massacre

“There were also failures in leadership, command, and coordination. None of the law enforcement leaders at the scene established an incident command structure to provide timely direction, control, and coordination,” the report states.

Neither Arredondo nor Escalon took steps to provide leadership to those in the room, according to the report.

Once children were finally rescued from the classrooms, a perimeter should have been established and direction with other leadership in the hallway should have been given by Escalon, according to the DOJ.

“The TXDPS regional director, and some other officers, walked past the law enforcement officers bringing injured and deceased victims out of the classrooms and entered classrooms 111 and 112 with no identifiable purpose or action, therefore compromising the crime scene,” the report states.

It wasn’t until a few minutes later that a Texas Ranger on scene took control and ordered all law enforcement out of the crime scene, according to the DOJ.

“The Texas Ranger appeared to be one of the few leaders on scene who attempted to coordinate with other agency personnel and ended up in different interactions with all the major responding agencies,” the report states.

Internal memos find ‘no fault’ in suspended Texas Ranger’s Uvalde response

According to the report, a Texas DPS captain present at the crime scene ordered another officer to create a log of names for anyone who enters the crime scene; however, “none of the officials filed reports after their walk-throughs, as is reportedly required by TXDPS.”

In addition to the integrity of the crime scene inside the school being jeopardized by leadership shortfalls, the DOJ report states DPS declined the FBI’s offer to assist with the collection of evidence from the car wrecked by the shooter. The report states there was an urgent need to preserve the crime scene with a forecasted major storm moving in.

As a result, “the storm brought heavy rainfall and winds that washed out the crime scene and compromised the evidence, which included one of the subject’s two rifles, casings from shooting at the funeral home employees, and other personal items inside the vehicle,” according to the DOJ.

KXAN found this wasn’t the only instance DPS refused help or denied other agencies information further delaying the investigative process, the report states.

The DOJ’s report states the FBI offered its victim specialists to help with the death notification process but were denied the ability to assist.

Officials react to DOJ report of Uvalde shooting response

“They were told “we got this” by TXDPS, even though the TXDPS staff was untrained in this process,” according to the DOJ report.

Furthermore, the report states local investigations have been delayed due to the unwillingness to cooperate with a request by the City of Uvalde for evidence necessary to their internal review.

“UPD’s internal investigation has been hampered by a lack of access to evidence that TXDPS was in possession of and not willing to share,” the report states.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that none of the 376 officers at the scene will face federal charges. One day after the release of the DOJ report, Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell called forth a grand jury to review evidence. Any charges related to the May 2022 shooting are left up to them.

The report states Texas DPS and other law enforcement agencies failed to communicate in a culturally sensitive manner with victims’ family members.

DOJ report: TX DPS official re-enacted Uvalde shooting in front of victims’ families

Key among these failures was a lack of information released in Spanish, death notices delivered by undertrained personnel and insensitive leadership, the report said.

According to Moody, the Texas House investigative committee also acknowledged a lack of information flow to families, especially those whose primary language is Spanish. The DOJ report says that press conferences were primarily held in English, despite requests for translation.

Moody explained that the House had planned to release English and Spanish reports at the same time but received word that families wanted the documents immediately, rather than waiting for the translation. A Spanish report was eventually published.

The federal agency also criticizes the Department of Public Safety for refusing to utilize resources from the FBI’s victim specialists. The report details one press conference where a DPS officer “re-enacted the shooting,” in front of victims and families.

IN-DEPTH: TX DPS official re-enacted Uvalde shooting in front of victims’ families

Moody emphasized that the DOJ was better able to delve into how Uvalde and DPS officials communicated with the public. “We certainly heard from some of the family members about, you know, the lack of care or lack of compassion,” he said. “There’s no right way to deliver such terrible information to people who have lost so much, but it certainly could have been better, should have been better.”

On Friday, the Texas Department of Public Safety released a statement thanking the DOJ “for the tremendous amount of time and attention it has put into compiling the critical incident review.”

“As DPS Director Steven McCraw first stated in the weeks after the shooting, the law enforcement response that day was an abject failure, and this report’s observations underscore those failures,” DPS said in its Friday statement. “The State of Texas has already implemented some of the recommendations proposed by the DOJ review in order to prevent tragedies in the future.”

Paxton moves to end whistleblower lawsuit, judge orders sworn testimony to happen sooner

A Travis County judge issued an order Friday for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to sit for a deposition on Feb. 1 in the lawsuit brought by four of his former employees. However, some of those plaintiffs and their attorneys expect Paxton to appeal.

Judge Jan Soifer said Paxton will have to appear for and answer questions in an oral deposition at an Austin law firm on that day starting at 9 a.m. She said she reached this decision because his office failed to negotiate with the plaintiffs’ attorneys over times to schedule the deposition.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moves to end litigation in whistleblower lawsuit

The order also set dates for three of Paxton’s top employees: Feb. 2 for First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster, Feb. 7 for Chief of Staff Lesley French Henneke, and Feb. 9 for senior advisor Michelle Smith.

KXAN never received any responses after reaching out twice Friday seeking comment from the Office of the Attorney General about the judge’s latest order. This story will be updated once anything is shared.

This all comes a day after Paxton’s attorneys submitted a filing that they said aims to end the lawsuit the former employees brought against his office. It also follows the Texas Supreme Court denying Paxton’s request to block his deposition in the lawsuit from his former top-ranking deputies, who allege Paxton wrongfully terminated them after reporting him for alleged corruption to federal authorities.

Attorney TJ Turner, who represents whistleblower David Maxwell, shared his reaction Friday to this filing, calling it a “stunt” intended to block the deposition from happening.

“I think the last thing Ken Paxton wants to do is put a hand on his Bible and tell the truth, and he’s going to avoid that at all costs,” Turner said. “So I think there will be another legal maneuver, and we’ll wait and see what that is.

In their filing, Paxton’s attorneys emphasized his belief that he did nothing wrong, noting the Texas Senate acquitted him at his impeachment trial last year. They also argue that the former employees claims’ include are not protected by the state’s whistleblower protection law.

However, in the same document, they said Paxton’s office “hereby elects not to contest any issue of fact in this case” and “elects not to dispute the Plaintiffs’ lawsuit.”

That latter argument especially shocked Blake Brickman, a former deputy attorney general who’s now suing Paxton. He said he saw what Paxton wrote in the filing as “total vindication.”

“This is a total 180 that Ken Paxton has done. He is now saying he is not contesting our facts. The impeachment trial was based on our allegations, and now he’s saying what we said is true,” Brickman said. “The people of Texas really need to think about that. Conservative, rule-of-law Republicans really need to think about how disingenuous this attorney general is for him to say, actually, all these things are true now, right before he’s about to get deposed, after he went through the impeachment. It’s shocking. It really is.”

Brickman said he does anticipate Paxton to appeal the judge’s order. However, that last resulted in the Texas Supreme Court rejecting his request to avoid testifying under oath in the lawsuit.

If Paxton does eventually go under oath, though, he could invoke his Fifth Amendment right and not answer any questions. Mike Golden, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, said that could end up harming a defendant in a civil case like this.

“Here in a civil case, any witness, including the defendant or an employee defendant, can plead the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer any particular question. That’s protected by the Constitution, and they can’t be compelled to answer those questions,” Golden said. “But the flip side is, in the civil case, their refusal to answer that question gets used against them in court. The plaintiffs can argue to the jury: he didn’t answer this question because he knew the answer will be bad for him, and he didn’t answer 77 questions because he knew the answers were going to be bad for him. That’s the huge difference between how a criminal case works and a civil case [works].”

In new campaign finance reports released this week, Paxton detailed how he spent nearly $2.3 million in campaign funds to pay for his legal defense in his impeachment trial.

Record demand for electricity brings concern, confidence about future of the Texas power grid

A round of frigid weather had many Texans facing subfreezing temperatures last week, and the Arctic blast led to record-breaking demand for electricity across the state. During those days, ERCOT called on Texans to conserve energy. But the state still set new records for power use.

Numbers from ERCOT show the previous peak energy demand record for January was set back in 2018. Back then, Texans set the record at just under 66-thousand megawatts. Last Sunday, January 14, the state shattered that record, with peak demand closing in on 71-thousand megawatts.

The next day, we shattered it again, with demand topping 76-thousand megawatts. Tuesday brought another record, with peak demand exceeding 78-thousand megawatts.

But the new records have some worried about future demand on the system. Politics reporter Ryan Chandler spoke with the CEO of ERCOT about how the state will meet the need for energy.

Ryan Chandler: Every time the supply and the demand on the grid gets a little too close, I notice that wind and solar are always the first scapegoats or points of blame — because maybe the sun isn’t out or there’s less wind than we expect. But you know, of course, back in February 2021, natural gas was also hindered by the extreme cold, as well. Can you break down how all of the different energy sources that feed our grid play into the overall supply and which are the most reliable this week?

Pablo Vegas, ERCOT CEO: Well, it’s really a question of needing to have all of the pieces of the puzzle working together in order to get through an event like this. And it’s really never our intent to try to place blame on any one source of energy. When we’re having challenges or when the grid gets tight, what we want to do is just try to explain facts as to what’s happening on the grid. Those facts can vary based on what the season is and what’s going on, and what time of day it is. For example, during the winter, we’re always going to see those peaks, typically when the sun goes down and things get very cold. So, obviously, solar resources won’t play a role in helping to deliver energy during those peaks in the wintertime.

And then, as we look at this week in particular, we really needed all of the pieces and parts to work together. So we needed the thermal power plants to be available, we needed the batteries to all be available and ready to go. And then wind is the main variable that we look at. That just depends on whether the wind is blowing for this event. The wind performance, the wind has been blowing a little bit less than what is seasonally normal this time of year. So that does help to contribute a little bit, but it’s not blame. It’s just the fact — the wind blows, sometimes it blows hard, and sometimes it doesn’t blow hard. But the windmills themselves, they’ve seen really good performance in terms of very little icing. So we haven’t been losing the available windmills to that kind of issue. So, all across the board, the electric supply fleet has really been performing very well during this week.

Ryan Chandler: Let’s talk long-term because this week we’re feeling pretty comfortable, but every December, January, February, people are still anxious ever since that February 2021 storm. Every time the temperatures plunge, we start worrying: ‘Are the lights going to stay on? Am I going to stay warm?’ What are we doing as a state and as a grid in the next 5, 10 years to make sure that when the temperatures drop, we don’t have to have this same conversation next year or the year after that?

Pablo Vegas, ERCOT CEO: We certainly know a couple of things are going to likely remain true. One is: Texas continues to grow economically year over year. Texas is doing really well. A lot of people are moving to the state, businesses are moving to the state. So that helps to drive electric demand up. As a result of that, it requires infrastructure investments across the board. We’ve seen the state legislature take up this issue and find ways to try to incentivize all different types of generation to get developed, including thermal dispatchable generation.

We’re already seeing a lot of growth on the electric grid from renewable sources. We’re seeing solar and wind growing on the electric grid year over year. We’re seeing batteries growing very rapidly on the electric grid. We’re seeing that every year, the additions of those resources, and they’re making a big difference during the summers as well as during the winters. If we can add to that and balance that growth with some thermal dispatchable resources, which is what some of the legislation that was passed in the last session enabled and incentivized, then we’re really going to be able to get to that place where we know we’re going to be able to address whether it’s the hottest day or the coldest winter without having as many reliability concerns as we sometimes do today.

Ryan Chandler: Are we seeing any impact from those investments? For people who may be unaware, the governor signed a pair of bills meant to provide loans and incentivize power plants to come to Texas and build more plants. It could cost as much as $18 billion, per some reports. Are we seeing any payoff from that investment? Any projects in the pipeline now?

Yeah, we’ve already seen some announcements made from companies that are going to start to build new gas-fired power plants as a result of that incentive that came through the legislation. The governor and I were just down in Houston a few weeks back (for) an announcement that Calpine made about an investment. They’re already making up their Freestone energy center. So, it’s definitely leading to companies making decisions to make investments and to help support the growing energy economy here in Texas.

Poll finds border security, economy top issues for Texas voters as primary looms

Texas voters will begin heading to the polls in just over a month for the primary elections. Early voting begins on Feb. 20 for the March 5 primary. New polling is giving early insight into how voters feel about the issues and the candidates.

The Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media poll asked 1,315 registered Texas voters about the upcoming presidential and senate primaries along with hypothetical November election scenarios.

The poll found a variety of concerns motivating Texans to vote this year. Immigration and border security was listed by 29% of voters as the top issue facing Texas. The economy finished second at 22%, followed by healthcare at 12% and education and abortion access both at 9%. Threats to democracy, crime and housing affordability were also named.

Among Democratic voters, a key primary race will determine who faces Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in November. In the Senate primary, 29% of Democratic voters polled plan to support Representative Colin Allred. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez trails with 7% support in the poll, just ahead of the 6% supporting Nueces County District Attorney Mark Gonzalez. A plurality of voters (37%) are undecided ahead of the March primary.

While Allred has a double-digit lead over the other Democrats in the field, the poll still shows him short of the 50% threshhold to avoid a runoff to decide the nomination.

In a hypothetical general election between Allred and Senator Ted Cruz, Cruz holds 42% of the vote over Allred’s 40%, a statistical tie considering the poll’s credibility interval of +/- 2.6 percentage points. A race between Gutierrez and Cruz appears even closer, with Cruz receiving 41% and Gutierrez receiving 40% of support. In both cases, approximately 8% of voters choose someone else, and 11% are undecided.

The poll shows that Texas voters expect a November rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the presidential election. In the primary poll, President Biden won support from 72% of Texas Democrats, giving him a strong lead for the nomination. Marianne Williamson trails with 6%, followed by 5% for Dean Phillips.

Donald Trump leads the Republican primary with 69% of support from Texas voters. He’s trailed by former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley at 11% and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at 9%. Trump is also ahead in a hypothetical general election battle, claiming 49% of the vote over Biden’s 41%.

Almost 90% of people in the Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media poll said they were likely to vote in the upcoming state primary elections. That would be astonishingly high. Just 18% of registered voters participated in the 2022 primary election. In 2020, the last presidential primary year, 25% of Texas voters turned out for the March primary.

As of now, Texas is home to 17.9 million registered voters, about 81% of the voting age population. That’s over a million more potential voters than January 2020.

Emerson-College-Polling-Nexstar-Media-Texas-Primary-PollDownload

The Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media Texas poll was conducted January 13-15, 2024. The sample consisted of 1,315 registered voters, with a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error, of +/- 2.6 percentage points. The Democratic Senate Primary poll consisted of 460 Democratic Primary voters, with a credibility interval of +/- 4.5 percentage points.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin.