DOJ issues scathing review of failed police response to Uvalde school shooting

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• Geoff Bennett:

  The Justice Department released a withering report today on how law enforcement failed in its response to the 2022 shooting attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

  It's the most comprehensive assessment of what happened during the shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers. The nearly 600-page report lays out a series of — quote — "cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy, and training."

  Attorney General Merrick Garland said law enforcement officers demonstrated no urgency as they waited out the shooter.

• Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General:

  Officials on scene transitioned from treating the scene as an active shooter situation to treating the shooter as a barricaded subject.

  This was the most significant failure. That failure meant that law enforcement officials prioritized the protracted evacuation of students and teachers in other classrooms, instead of immediately rescuing the victims trapped with the active shooter. It meant that officials spent time trying to negotiate with the subject, instead of entering the room and confronting him.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Tony Plohetski is an investigative reporter for The Austin-American Statesman and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his coverage of Uvalde.

  Tony, thank you for being with us.

  So the DOJ is saying it wasn't one failure, it was many, and it wasn't the absence of leadership, it was failed leadership. And this report finds real fault with Pete Arredondo, who is the former school district police chief.

  Tell us more about that and then walk us through the top lines of this report.

• Tony Plohetski, The Austin-American Statesman:

  Well, Geoff, it is the most comprehensive and broadest investigation that has been released into the shooting.

  And in many ways, it continues to substantiate and confirm much of what the public has known. But this report is also striking in terms of its breadth in discussing the consequences of that and the aftermath of the shooting.

  So, for example, it describes that because there was a failure of leadership and no real incident commander, the time that should have been spent putting together, for example, a way to triage the children and the patients who were coming out of Robb Elementary School, that was not done.

  And in a very jarring and difficult-to-hear example, we read about a teacher who was left on a sidewalk outside of the school, not getting proper care, and later died. So the report itself, again, really walked us through the failed response in those precious 77 minutes, but also the consequences thereafter.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Let's talk more about the failed emergency response, because the report, as you mentioned, finds that medical teams were hampered from doing their job. Law enforcement was moving injured kids in ways that were probably more helpful. That's a direct line from the report.

  Several students with bullet wounds, grazes and other injuries were directed onto buses to a civic center without having been brought to the attention of medics. How did the EMS response add to what the DOJ calls this cascade of failures?

• Tony Plohetski:

  Well, one of the things, as you mentioned, there was blood supplies, for example, that were brought to the scene, but were not used on the patients.

  And I think also, as part of this conversation as well, it was also striking that there was no way for ambulances to in an emergency fashion enter the campus, because law enforcement officers who descended blocked the entrances to the school.

  So a question was asked to the attorney general point blank today, would more people could have — could they have survived, would they have survived had they been able to receive very urgent medical care? And his answer was a resounding yes.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Tony, how are the families reacting to this?

• Tony Plohetski:

  Well, you know, Geoff, the families of the 19 children and two teachers really don't speak with a collective voice, as you can imagine. They're all processing this in very different ways.

  But, to be clear, the information that they receive today is very difficult to hear. I think, in many ways it absolutely confirms their worst suspicion and their worst nightmare. But now the conversation also continues to focus, as it has since May of 2022, by the way, on accountability and whether or not those families will ever see any sort of satisfying accountability in the aftermath.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, what does accountability look like now, Tony? Does the release of this report change that in any significant way?

• Tony Plohetski:

  Federal officials took great pains today to say that the scope of this investigation was not about identifying potential criminal liability, that that was outside the scope of what they were doing, and, as a matter of fact, did not find any federal crimes that could potentially be federally prosecuted.

  That means that accountability has to be done with regard to criminal charges at the local level. And we know that, for many months, it's really the onset of these calls for accountability, that the district attorney has said she is actively investigating.

  But, as you can imagine, on the ground among those families, there's a push for something more timely and a more timely result of her investigation.

  Geoff, also, I do want to point out, there continue to be administrative investigations inside some of the law enforcement agencies whose officers responded that day. But the report actually points out the fact that these types of administrative investigations regarding whether or not law enforcement officers violated their own department policies, those similarly, according to this report, must be done at a much faster pace in order to provide the public and, in particular, the families of those victims much more timely information.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Tony Plohetski with The Austin-American Statesman.

  Tony, thank you so much for joining us this evening.

• Tony Plohetski:

  Thank you.