'Several Critical Failures': DOJ Releases Report on Uvalde Law Enforcement Response

On May 24, 2022, 19 students and two teachers were murdered in Uvalde when a gunman burst into classrooms 111 and 112 inside Robb Elementary School. Seventeen others were injured in the attack, while countless lives were forever harmed by the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.

On Thursday, 20 months after the attack changed Uvalde forever, the U.S. Department of Justice released its report on the law enforcement response to the Robb Elementary attack. Over much of the 610 pages, the DOJ excoriates the slow, bumbling and disorganized approach to finally confronting, then neutralizing, the gunman, an effort that took 77 minutes.

During a Thursday morning press conference introducing the report, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland made quick work in diplomatically pointing out where the major failure in the remarkably slow response in Uvalde lay.

“It is now widely understood by law enforcement agencies across the country that in active shooter incidents, time is not on the side of law enforcement,” Garland said. “Every second counts. The priority of law enforcement must be to immediately enter the room and to stop the shooter with whatever weapons and tools officers have with them.”

It has been widely reported over the past nearly two years that officers from the Uvalde Police Department, Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police, Texas Border Patrol and Texas Department of Public Safety made numerous errors in judgment and failed to organize a cohesive plan for confronting the shooter in an efficient, effective manner.

Much of the 77 minutes police spent in the school’s hallway outside of the rooms where the children were killed were occupied by the search for a school room master key, although the classroom doors were unlocked, and the wait for protective gear that officers hoped would better protect them against the gunmen’s powerful assault rifle.

In its analysis overview, the report states that critical incident response (CIR) team handling the investigation “identified several critical failures and other breakdowns prior to, during, and after the Robb Elementary School response and analyzed the cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy, and training that contributed to those failures and breakdowns.”

“As a dad, I cannot imagine the deep grief, heartbreak, and frustration these families are feeling," Dallas U.S. Rep. Colin Allred said in a statement released on Thursday. "On that dark day, law enforcement failed to protect the vulnerable children at Robb Elementary. I join my fellow Texans today in mourning and demanding justice and accountability.”

Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde and is running against Allred for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate this year, held a press conference on Thursday in Uvalde to talk about the report, followed by some appearances on TV news shows. He has advocated for accountability and transparency in the state's own investigation into the law enforcement response.

"For these families, they'll never get over this, these were their children," Gutierrez told an MSNBC host. "The only thing they can look forward to is just some duller sense of pain. These families have become my friends, and in some part, my extended family. ... They're good, hard-working Hispanic people that never imagined something like this happening in their hometown."

The small town of Uvalde, about 80 miles west of San Antonio, still grapples with how to move on from the devastation the shooting caused. The Robb Elementary building is set to be demolished, with plans for a replacement school to open in the next couple of years.

To view the entire Department of Justice Critical incident Review on the Uvalde law enforcement response, see below.