Texas House report slams ‘systemic failures and egregious poor decision making’ in Uvalde massacre response

A damning Texas House committee report has found that “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making” hampered the response to the Uvalde mass shooting where nearly 400 law enforcement officers rushed to the school but failed to stop the murders of 19 innocent students and two teachers.

The 77-page report, released on Sunday by Texas officials, cited multiple failures from almost all authorities involved including the overall law enforcement response, the Uvalde school system, the shooter’s family and social media platforms.

The law enforcement response was described as “chaos” where officers on the scene “failed to prioritise saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety” and had no clear leadership.

The report also said that gunman Salvador Ramos is believed to have never fired a gun before the massacre on 24 May when he unleashed around 142 rounds in a deadly rampage that left 21 dead.

Victims’ families, survivors and state lawmakers have demanded answers for the last six weeks about what went wrong at Robb Elementary School that day.

Questions have focused particularly on the law enforcement response after it was revealed that officers waited 77 minutes from the time that Ramos entered the school and began shooting to when an elite Border Patrol unit shot him dead.

In its scathing conclusion, the committee report said that it is “plausible” that this delay cost the lives of some of the victims who were bleeding out and trapped inside the room with the gunman.

“Given the information known about victims who survived through the time of the breach and who later died on the way to the hospital it is plausible that some victims could have survived if they had not had to wait 73 additional minutes for rescue,” the report stated.

The Texas House committee was tasked with investigating both the mass shooting and the response from multiple entities, holding interviews with more than 40 witnesses and law enforcement officers on the scene.

The long-awaited report of their findings was first shared with the family members of the victims on Sunday morning before being released to the public.

After giving them some time to review the report, the families met with the House committee on Sunday afternoon to discuss its findings. In the meeting, they were also shown the 77-minute surveillance footage from the hallway inside the school.

The footage was controversially obtained by the Austin American-Statesman this week and released ahead of being shown to the families. In it, officers were seen retreating from the gunfire and huddling in the hallway outside the classroom while the rampage continued inside.

Vincent Salazar, the grandfather of one of the victims killed in the massacre, branded the police response “a joke” as he picked up a copy of the report on Sunday.

“It’s a joke. They’re a joke. They’ve got no business wearing a badge. None of them do,” he said. His 11-year-old granddaughter Layla Salazer was murdered by the gunman.

The three Texas House committee members — Rep Dustin Burrows, Rep Joe Moody and former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman — said that “the victims, their families, and the entire Uvalde community have already waited too long for answers and transparency”.

While much of the blame for the police response has to date been levelled towards local police – in particular Uvalde School Police Chief Pete Arredondo – the committee report found that state and federal law enforcement also shared the blame for the botched response.

Chief Arredondo’s six-member police team was vastly outnumbered by personnel from other agencies and other officers could – and should – have stepped up and taken over as incident commander when it was clear he was not up to the task, the report found.

A staggering 376 law enforcement officers descended on Robb Elementary School to respond to what became the worst mass shooting in Texas history.

Among them was 149 US Border Patrol, 91 state police, 25 Uvalde police officers, 16 sheriff’s deputies and just five Uvalde school police officers.

Xural.com