The more we learn about Uvalde, TX law enforcement's actions (or inactions, as it were) in response to the May 24 spree killing at Robb Elementary School, the more heartbroken and infuriated we become.
It's been reported that there was a large enough police presence to thwart the gunman within a few minutes (as opposed to nearly an hour) of his opening fire. However, the on-scene commander “chose to put the lives of officers before the lives of children,” according to Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw.
A few key findings from this investigation reveals a leadership vacuum:
- No security footage from inside the school showed police officers attempting to open the doors to classrooms 111 and 112, which were connected by an adjoining door. Arredondo told the Tribune that he tried to open one door and another group of officers tried to open another, but that the door was reinforced and impenetrable. Those attempts were not caught in the footage reviewed by the Tribune. Some law enforcement officials are skeptical that the doors were ever locked.
- Within the first minutes of the law enforcement response, an officer said the Halligan (a firefighting tool that is also sometimes spelled hooligan) was on site. It wasn’t brought into the school until an hour after the first officers entered the building. Authorities didn’t use it and instead waited for keys.
- Officers had access to four ballistic shields inside the school during the standoff with the gunman, according to a law enforcement transcript. The first arrived 58 minutes before officers stormed the classrooms. The last arrived 30 minutes before.
- Multiple Department of Public Safety officers — up to eight, at one point — entered the building at various times while the shooter was holed up. Many quickly left to pursue other duties, including evacuating children, after seeing the number of officers already there. At least one of the officers expressed confusion and frustration about why the officers weren’t breaching the classroom, but was told that no order to do so had been given.
- At least some officers on the scene seemed to believe that Arredondo was in charge inside the school, and at times Arredondo seemed to be issuing orders such as directing officers to evacuate students from other classrooms. That contradicts Arredondo’s assertion that he did not believe he was running the law enforcement response. Arredondo’s lawyer, George E. Hyde, said the chief will not elaborate on his interview with the Tribune, given the ongoing investigation.
If all that isn't bad enough, it was also revealed that the husband of slain teacher Eva Mireles was prevented from tending to his wife while she was still alive.
Ruben Ruiz is a police officer for the school district and was on the scene after the gunman entered the school and opened fire.
McCraw said Mireles called Ruiz and told him that “she had been shot and was dying.”
“And what happened to him, is he tried to move forward into the hallway,” McCraw said. “He was detained and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene.”
The dereliction of duty and utter incompetence on display should, at minimum, result in multiple people losing their jobs. As I've said ad nauseum to those who support banning AR-15s in the aftermath of this incident: if even a semi competent shooter has a hour to commit atrocities, a mere handgun could also result in 21 deaths as long as said shooter had enough ammunition.
As it stands today, we're on the brink of having significant gun regulations pass through the U.S. Senate before even one officer is fired.
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