Source San Antonio Express-News
UVALDE, TX — A police consultant who examined the actions of Uvalde police during the Robb Elementary School massacre said Thursday that local officers were not to blame for the confused law enforcement response and the heavy loss of life.
Jesse Prado met with the City Council as a crowd of around 150 people packed the civic center here. He said Uvalde officers saw "no solutions" to the situation they confronted at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022. A teenage gunman had shot up a pair of connected classrooms with an assault-style rifle and was holed up in one of the rooms with dead and wounded victims.
Prado said two officers who tried to storm the room and confront the shooter were driven back when he fired through the wall, grazing both of them.
Police had no clear shot at the gunman, and they lacked a ballistic body shield sturdy enough to withstand high-velocity rounds from his rifle, Prado said.
"There were many failures on the part of police that day, but no violations of policy on the part of local officers," Prado, a retired Austin police detective with more than 24 years of experience, told the council.
He noted that two months before the Robb massacre, Uvalde officers attended an active-shooter training designed to prepare them for just such a scenario. But none of the officers gathered in the hallway outside the classrooms saw a way to neutralize the gunman.
"There were no solutions given, other than they needed a shield," Prado said. "I believe there were no solutions given because there were no solutions for this.
"There was never a scenario they put on that covered this exact issue that was happening there at Robb."
Nineteen fourth graders and two teachers were killed that day. The gunman was finally shot dead by members of a Border Patrol tactical unit who breached the room where he was hiding — 77 minutes after police received the first call for assistance. By then, a so-called rifle-rated ballistic shield, strong enough to protect officers, had been delivered to the school. The Border Patrol officers stood behind it as they entered the room.
Prado's findings infuriated family members of the victims, who denounced his report as a whitewash.
Kimberly Mata-Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed in the shooting, said three Uvalde police officers who were in the hallway had active-shooter training, and yet "they chose their lives over the lives of children and teachers .... and for that they should be terminated."
Speaking during the public comment period, Mata-Rubio asked council members to imagine that their family members were cowering in a barricaded room "with a deranged person," waiting for police to arrive.
"Are these the people you want responding to your loved ones?" she said. "Guaranteed it's not.
"They stood there 77 minutes and waited after they got call after call (saying) the kids were still alive in there," she said.
"Do what's right. Terminate them ... these people should not be serving."
Brett Cross, guardian of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, one of the children killed in the massacre, brought forward one of the fourth graders who survived.
"I want you to look at Adrian right here, every single one of y'all," Cross said. "This child was shot and he sat in there for 77 minutes while those (expletive) cowards did nothing."
Cross said the families of the victims were tired of seeing law enforcement duck accountability for the shooting. "We're sick of it," he said.
At least two council members agreed with the boisterous crowd that the report fell far short of their expectations.
"I'm disappointed. I'm very insulted by this report," Councilman Hector Luevano said. "The parents deserve more." He said the community was owed a "thorough investigation and thorough explanation. I'm sorry, I don't accept this report."
Councilman Chip King III said he had been "sitting here shaking for the last hour." He told audience members, "I assure you this is not what we wanted."
Prado's review was the latest in a series of official inquiries into the police response to the Robb massacre. Unlike the others, his focused exclusively on the Uvalde Police Department's role. In all, 380 officers from two dozen agencies were on the scene that day.
The U.S. Justice Department in January released the results of an exhaustive investigation. It found that a chaotic law enforcement response caused needless delays in taking out the gunman while children lay bleeding to death in their classroom.
Among the department's findings was that no one took on the job of acting as the on-scene commander, a critical misstep that worsened a cascade of poor decisions. Ultimately, those errors delayed the confrontation with the shooter, DOJ investigators said in their 575-page report.
"Had law enforcement followed generally accepted practices in an active-shooter situation and gone right after the shooter to stop him, lives would have been saved, and people would have survived," U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in releasing the report.
"The victims and survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School deserved better," he said. "The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary ... was a failure. As a consequence of failed leadership, training, and policies, 33 students and three of their teachers — many of whom had been shot — were trapped in a room with an active shooter for over an hour as law enforcement officials remained outside."
A report by a Texas House investigative committee, released in 2022, said the school district didn't adequately prepare for the risk of an armed attacker, that "there was a regrettable culture of noncompliance by school personnel who frequently propped doors open and deliberately circumvented locks," and that no one had locked any of the three exterior doors to the west building of Robb, allowing the shooter to enter.
The House committee also said that "law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety."
Even though the Uvalde school district's then-police chief, Pedro "Pete" Arredondo, and the commander of the Uvalde Police Department SWAT team quickly arrived on the scene, "there was an unacceptably long period of time before officers breached the classroom, neutralized the attacker, and began rescue efforts," the committee said.
A criminal investigation into the shooting is still underway. A Uvalde County grand jury is reviewing evidence collected by the Texas Rangers. District Attorney Christina Mitchell, who is leading the investigation, has said issues to be examined include whether anyone illegally helped the gunman buy weapons and ammunition.
The grand jury also may consider whether any law enforcement officer could be held criminally responsible for the botched police response.
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