“Cascading failures": What’s inside the DOJ’s report on the Uvalde shooting

The Department of Justice has released a comprehensive report detailing law enforcement's disastrous response to the May 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas — one of the deadliest school shootings in recent history. Investigators conducted more than 260 interviews with individuals interviews with individuals from more than 30 organizations and agencies, spending a total of 54 days on-site.

The “most significant failure” outlined in the almost 600-page report was law enforcement’s treatment of the gunman as a barricaded subject rather than an active shooter. If it were treated as an active shooter situation, “instant and aggressive action” would’ve been required of the more than 370 officers on the scene, regardless of the danger, according to The New York Times. That classification by law enforcement, the DOJ says, prolonged the shooter’s access to defenseless kids and teachers in the classrooms.

Victims were stuck in a classroom with the shooter for more than an hour before being rescued, Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference.

The report also criticized how long it took law enforcement to set up a centralized command post, as well as the overall leadership from school police chief Pete Arredondo, who ordered officers not to enter classrooms, according to the AP. At least 5 members of law enforcement have lost their jobs since the shooting, including Arredondo.

No criminal charges for local officials were mentioned in the DOJ's report. However, the local district attorney is looking into potential state criminal charges.

“A report doesn’t matter when there are no consequences for actions that are so vile and murderous and evil,” Velma Lisa Duran, sister of teacher Irma Garcia, who was killed in the shooting, told the AP. She added, “Bring it to court.”

The report offers recommendations for school shooting responses, including establishing a chain of command and following guidelines put in place after the April 1999 Columbine shooting, which state that the shooter must be neutralized immediately.

“The victims and survivors of the mass shooting ... deserved better," said Garland. “The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary ... was a failure.”

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The report also stated that anti-immigrant sentiment added to the catastrophic response to the deadly shooting. Local law enforcement had been preoccupied with “bailout” alarms, in which law enforcement chases migrants seeking to escape Border Patrol. An earlier Texas House report said the prevalence of those alarms “contributed to a diminished sense of vigilance about responding to security alerts.”