A damning new report into the Uvalde school massacre has condemned the almost 400 law enforcement officers who flocked to the scene for ‘failing to prioritise innocent victims’ safety over their own’.
High school dropout Salvador Ramos killed 21 people, including 19 children, at Robb Elementary School in Texas on 24 May.
A 77-page report, seen by Sky News, was released on Sunday detailing what happened, after complaints that it had taken more than an hour to bring down 18-year-old Ramos.
It showed blame rested on almost every agency who attended.
It highlighted “systemic failures” and “ultimately poor decision-making” from officers both inside and outside the school.
There was no overall command, “chaos,” and a lack of unity in decision-making.
Nineteen children and two teachers were killed at the Robb Elementary School
And it also singled out the school for errors – saying security doors weren’t properly locked and some “active shooter” protocols weren’t followed.
There was a general “lackadaisical approach”, it said, adding: “At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritise saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.”
But it went on to say there were no individual “villains”.
“Other than the attacker, the committee did not find any ‘villains” in the course of its investigation.
“There is no-one to whom we can attribute malice or ill motives. Instead, we found systemic failures and egregiously poor decision making.”
CCTV shows one officer pausing to get hand sanitiser – 20 minutes before the gunman was stopped
The gunman’s victims
The report was written after a Texas House investigative committee had been asked to look into the incident.
It is the first to criticise both state and federal law enforcement, and not just local authorities in Uvalde for the inaction at the school.
Around 40 people testified behind closed doors, including members of the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police chief and officers, the district superintendent, the school’s principal, a teacher and custodial staff.
Almost 400 law enforcement officials had been on site by the end of the shooting, including 149 border patrol agents, 91 state troopers, 25 Uvalde police offices, US Marshals and Drug Enforcement Agency staff.
Calls for accountability
A nearly 80-minute hallway surveillance video published by the Austin American-Statesman this week publicly showed for the first time a hesitant and haphazard tactical response, which the head of Texas’ state police has condemned as a failure and some Uvalde residents have labelled cowardly.
Calls for police accountability have grown in the small town since the shooting. So far, only one officer from the scene of the deadliest school shooting in Texas history is known to be on leave.
The report is the result of one of several investigations into the shooting, including another led by the Justice Department.
Another earlier this month, by tactical experts at Texas State University, alleged a Uvalde police officer had a chance to stop the gunman before he went inside the school armed with an AR-15.
But in an example of the conflicting statements and disputed accounts since the shooting, Uvalde mayor Don McLaughlin has said that never happened.
A teacher who survived the school shooting has said he will never forgive the police for taking over an hour to enter his classroom after the gunman first opened fire.