Report finds “cascading failures” in law enforcement response to Uvalde school shooting

A new report released Thursday by the U.S. Justice Department found that Texas law enforcement officers could have saved the lives of more people at Robb Elementary School if they had followed “generally accepted practices.” An 18-year-old gunman on May 24, 2022, entered the school and killed 19 students and two teachers before law enforcement officers killed him more than an hour later. The report found that more than 300 law enforcement officers responded to the scene. Still, authorities failed to treat the incident as an active shooter situation and did not immediately try to enter the classrooms where the shooting occurred. Authorities instead treated it as a “barricaded suspect” event.

What else did the report find? Local school and law enforcement officials posted contradictory information during and after the shooting, according to the report. This confused parents and family members as they tried to locate their loved ones. The report also found that the majority of social media messaging was only posted in English, despite the fact that Uvalde has a large Spanish-speaking population.

Dig deeper: Read Addie Offereins’ report in Compassion on Uvalde residents trying to heal amid unanswered questions.