The video of Uvalde’s shooting shows a gunman firing in, police response
The video, obtained by Austin American-Statesman and KVUE, shows the confusion at Robb Elementary School while police are outside the classrooms.
Briana Sanchez and Nate Chute, American statesman from Austin
A scathing report released Sunday by a Texas House committee investigating the Uvalde school shooting blamed the multiple failures of those in positions of power, including about 400 law enforcement officers who converged on the ‘scene, so as not to stop the massacre.
The preliminary report describes “systemic failures and blatant poor decision-making”: how police ignored the department’s training of active shooters, how the school district did not fully adhere to its safety plan, and how the shooter’s family did not recognized the warning signs before the attack.
“In retrospect, we could say that Robb Elementary was not adequately prepared for the risk of a shooter at school,” Texas State Representative Dustin Burrows, chairman of the committee, said Sunday at a news conference.
The committee held closed-door meetings over the past month to investigate the shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead on May 24th. Outrage was sparked by the response from authorities who waited more than an hour before entering a fourth-grade classroom, even when students were terrified. called 911 for help.
The report, the most complete account to date of the accidental response to the massacre, was quickly achieved: Lieutenant Mariano Pargas, an agent of the Uvalde Police Department who was the city’s acting police chief during the massacre, he was placed on administrative leave after the report. released.
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Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin also announced Sunday that the city was posting images from the body camera of Uvalde police officers related to the Robb Elementary shooting.
Austin American-Statesman, part of the USA TODAY network, and KVUE television station obtained and posted exclusively the corridor surveillance video last week of the shooter and law enforcement officers who responded.
The families of the victims received the committee’s report on Sunday, according to committee chairman Dustin Burrows.
“Unfortunate culture of non-compliance by school staff”: what’s in the report?
The nearly 80-page report details numerous “deficiencies and failures” of the Uvalde school district and various law enforcement agencies and agents.
The document details an “unfortunate culture of non-compliance by school staff” when it comes to opening doors and avoiding locks. Staff and students knew that Robb Elementary’s Room 111 was especially unsafe and usually had trouble closing it: investigators in the room believe the shooter probably entered.
Police officers did not adhere to their own active shooter plan and “did not give priority to saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.”
Uvalde’s consolidated independent school district established its own police department in 2018 that oversees Uvalde’s public schools. But the district had no officers assigned specifically to Robb Elementary, according to the report.
“With nine different schools and a budget for six police officers, Uvalde CISD oversees more campuses than it has officers,” he says.
A total of 376 law enforcement officers responded to the shooting. According to the report, most of those who responded to the school were federal and state police. Authorities included 150 U.S. Border Patrol officers and 91 state police officers.
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The report cites a disruption of on-site communication and confusion about leadership among police officers in the consolidated independent school district of Uvalde, but they lay the blame on other law enforcement agencies.
The written plan of active shooters of the UValde Consolidated Independent School District says that its police chief, Pete Arredondo, should take command during an active shooter. Although he was one of the first to respond to the shooting, “he did not make or transfer to another person the role of commander of the incident,” the report says.
But other police witnesses interviewed by the committee either assumed Arrendo was responsible, or did not know if anyone was in the lead because of the chaos of the scene.
“Despite an obvious atmosphere of chaos, the rating officers of other responding agencies did not approach the police chief of Uvalde CISD or any other person perceived as a commander to point out the lack and need for a command post, or to offer you that specific point. assistance, “the report says.
Although the full investigation has not been completed, the preliminary report provides initial details gathered from the testimony of families and community members, many of whom have expressed frustration at the conflicting descriptions of law enforcement in the around the shooting.
The report gathered information from interviews with 33 witnesses and 39 informal interviews, including administrators from the Texas Department of Public Safety, agents from the Uvalde Police Department, McLaughlin, and Sheriff Ruben Nolasco.
Change the filming narrative
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott initially praised law enforcement for his actions during the shooting and praised his “incredible courage in running toward the shots.” to assault the classroom.
The day after the shooting, a Uvalde police lieutenant who was at the scene was scheduled to hold an briefing with state leaders, according to the report. But the officer fainted as he waited in the hallway before; instead, DPS Regional Director for South Texas Victor Escalon conducted the briefing. But Escalon is not based in Uvalde and did not witness “most of the day’s events, which left him dependent on second-hand knowledge,” the report says.
Officers later repeated false information from Escalon that the incident lasted only 40 minutes thanks to officers who “were brave in keeping the attacker trapped while the children were being evacuated.”
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Texas Department of Homeland Security director Steve McCraw described the police response as an “abject failure” that put officers’ lives ahead of children’s lives at a state Senate hearing in June. McCraw blamed school district police chief Arredondo, the commander of the incident, for preventing officers from quickly confronting the gunman.
More than 100 of the 142 rounds the shooter fired inside the school were fired before officers entered, according to the report.
A different report obtained by Statesman this month, written by Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training and requested by the Department of Public Safety, found that a Uvalde police officer aimed his rifle at the gunman before enter the school, but waited for the permission of a fire supervisor.
According to the report, the shooter developed a “fascination” with shootings in schools
The 82-page report says the shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was driven by “a desire for notoriety and fame.”
“Relatives described the attacker as shy and calm,” he is said to have said. “The Committee heard witnesses who were reluctant to interact with their peers due to a speech impediment.”
Early school assessments showed he was lagging behind academically and was identified as “at risk” by third grade due to consistently poor test scores. He had only finished ninth grade at 17 years old. Uvalde High School inadvertently withdrew him in October 2021, “alleging poor academic performance and lack of attendance.”
The report says the shooter developed a “fascination” with shootings in schools. He was active on social media and most of his usernames and emails referred to issues of confrontation and revenge.
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According to the report, his frequent comments about school shootings led him to earn the nickname “The Yubo School Shooter” on the French social media app. People in his local chat group also started calling him “the school shooter.” He played video games and was mocked with a similar nickname by those he played with.
The FBI interviewed his ex-girlfriend, who said he was lonely, depressed and “constantly teased by friends who called him a ‘school shooter’.”
“He said he told her repeatedly that he would not live beyond eighteen, either because he would commit suicide or simply because he would not live long,” the report says.
What did the video of the hallway show?
The video obtained by Statesman and KVUE showed the delayed response of law enforcement.
In the video, officers walk back and forth down the hallway without entering or attempting to enter the classroom where the shooter was. Even after hearing at least four shots from the classrooms 45 minutes after police arrived, officers did not move to enter the room. They rushed into the classroom and killed the gunman an hour and 14 minutes after police arrived at the scene.
Law enforcement experts who reviewed the Statistician’s video called the police action “disastrous” and “inexcusable.”
The Texas House committee pushed for the 77-minute videotape to be released to the public, and the Department of Public Safety also wanted to release the video, saying it would promote transparency without interfering with investigations.
Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee opposed the release of the video and ordered the DPS to keep it confidential while investigations continue.
The video that the House commission will make available to families and the public on Sunday will not include images of the gunman entering the school and the view from the gunman’s hallway …