Three Texans — a former state Supreme Court justice and two members of the Texas House of Representatives — have delivered a scathing report on what went wrong when a shooter killed 19 children and two teachers in a Uvalde elementary school.
Their verdict: We have witnessed a systemic failure at all levels.
The cops who responded to the violence didn’t know what they were doing, they didn’t know who was in charge and they failed at every level to protect the community from the madness that erupted at Robb Elementary School.
Now comes the seemingly impossible task of determining how we fix it. It’s not impossible, but, yes, it is daunting in the extreme.
I will stand by my earlier stated belief that Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo needs to be fired and he needs to be sent on down the road to do something other than put on a badge and strap on a firearm as a police officer.
I also will contend as the top cop in the Uvalde school district it naturally should have fallen on him to take charge of the situation.
The Texas Tribune reports: But blame for the flawed police response extends far beyond the school district police chief of a six-officer department, the report concludes.
The report criticized other officers and law enforcement agencies, many of them better trained, for failing to fill the leadership vacuum left by Arredondo’s inaction.
Law enforcement failures in Uvalde shooting went far beyond local police | The Texas Tribune
The 77-page report offers details on the number of police officers on the scene. Arredondo’s police force comprised a tiny fraction of the total tactical team.
State Reps. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and former Justice Eva Guzman have done a thorough job of laying bare how the command and control of the situation failed as the tragedy was unfolding.
Eva Guzman offered a cogent piece of advice to those who run every school system in Texas: read the report.
Moreover, these folks need to assess their own response strategies and whether they are able to do what the individuals who responded to the Uvalde slaughter failed to do.