By Rachel Clarke, Shimon Prokupecz, Hannah Rabinowitz and Aaron Cooper | CNN
Officers had many opportunities as the 2022 school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was still unfolding to reassess their flawed response to the shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead, the US Justice Department concludes in a damning new report.
Bursts of gunfire, reports a teacher had been shot, then a desperate call from a student trapped with the gunman could – and should – all have prompted a drive to stop the bloodshed far sooner, the Critical Incident Review released Thursday says.
Instead, it took 77 minutes from when the 18-year-old shooter walked into Robb Elementary School until he was stopped. The carnage remains among the deadliest episodes in America’s ongoing scourge of campus shootings.
Critical failures in leadership among specific law enforcement officers who rushed to Robb Elementary are blamed by the Justice Department, whose 575-page report nearly 20 months after the massacre is the fullest official accounting of what happened, though much already was known largely through CNN investigation.
Ample problems also emerged after the gunman was killed, from getting students away from the school and reunited with families to how bereaved parents were told their children were dead, the release of information about what happened, and the provision of therapy services, the federal report finds.
“The response to the May 24, 2022, mass casualty incident at Robb Elementary School was a failure,” the Justice Department report concludes bluntly.
While the report lays out law enforcement actions – and shortfalls – in often-excruciating detail, it also has its limits: The much-anticipated assessment, for instance, does not make recommendations for punitive steps and offers limited introspection of federal forces’ actions. It was requested by the then-mayor of Uvalde, who within weeks of the horror said he feared a “cover-up” and being shut out of…
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