DoJ Report calls law enforcement response to Uvalde massacre a "failure" - they needed a report?
Even obvious things cannot be official until the bureaucracy has issued a report. Today, the Department of Justice announced that the law enforcement response to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, TX was a “failure.” No one who saw heavily armed, ballistic-vested cops milling around for 77 minutes while a lone gunman massacred kids, can claim to be surprised.
Nearly 400 “good guys with guns” waited for God only knows what before finally discovering the spine to tackle one “bad guy with a gun.” While they dithered, 19 schoolchildren and two teachers died in terror — and 17 others were injured.
The DoJ report says that if the authorities had acted differently, they might have saved lives. That is careful bureaucratese for “kids died who did not have to.”
NBC's story on the subject got to the crux of the matter. No one was in charge.
“The 600-page findings describe a chaotic scene that should have triggered several coordinated responses by law enforcement officers who first arrived at the school. Instead, a dearth of leadership contributed to officers failing to recognize an active shooter and waiting far too long to engage the gunman.”
The report outlined the cost of that lack of leadership:
"The resulting delay provided an opportunity for the active shooter to have additional time to reassess and reengage his deadly actions inside the classroom. It also contributed to a delay in medical interventions with the potential to impact survivability.”
It added:
“During that period, no one assumed a leadership role to direct the response towards the active shooter, provide situational status to responding officers, establish some form of incident command, or clearly assume and communicate the role of incident commander.”
Further, the Justice Department said that there were at least 10 "stimulus events" as the clock ticked that could have driven law enforcement officers to take steps under active shooter protocols to "immediately stop the killing."
Sadly, not even the delay gave the authorities sufficient time to get their story straight. The report reveals that they relayed incorrect information to some parents in the aftermath of the shooting about whether their children had survived or been killed.
Despite this unconscionable dereliction of duty, some people expressed optimism that some good will rise out of unalloyed bad.
Javier Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter, Jacklyn, was killed in the shooting, told NBC News he believes people need to be held accountable for the botched law enforcement response.
“Hopefully it does change things. It’s gonna bring some light to the little failures. And unfortunately, this happened, had to happen to us for those lessons to be shared with somebody else.”
I wish I were as positive-minded as Cazares. I am not. Based on the failure of many state governments to learn from the multiple school massacres since the Columbine slaughter — and their inability and unwillingness to address the fatal reality of high-powered weapons — I bet nothing will change.
The NRA is in bankruptcy court in New York, fighting for its existence. But even if that corrupt organization expires, its homicidal legacy will continue to condemn other school kids to death.
Jesus wept.