Nearly 400 law enforcement officials rushed to a mass shooting at a Uvalde elementary school, but “systemic failures” created a chaotic scene that lasted more than an hour before the gunman who took 21 lives was finally confronted and killed, according to a report from investigators released Sunday.
The nearly 80-page report was the first to criticize both state and federal law enforcement, and not just local authorities in the South Texas town for the bewildering inaction by heavily armed officers as a gunman fired inside a fourth-grade classroom.
The report - the most complete account yet of the hesitant and haphazard response to the May 24 massacre at at Robb Elementary School - was written by an investigative committee from the Texas House of Representatives and released to family members Sunday. The report noted that many of the hundreds of law enforcement responders who rushed to the school were better trained and equipped than the school district police - which the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, the state police force, previously faulted for not going into the room sooner.
Family members of the victims in Uvalde received copies of the report Sunday before it was released to the public. Flowers that had been piled high in the city's central square had been removed as of Sunday, leaving a few stuffed animal maps scattered around the fountains alongside photos of some of the children who were killed.
“Arredondo's search for a key consumed his attention and wasted precious time, delaying the breach of the classrooms,” the report read.
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