Justice Department to release findings of its review of the Uvalde school shooting response this week, superintendent says

By Melissa Alonso, CNN

(CNN) — The US Department of Justice plans to release its critical incident review of the law enforcement response to the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Thursday afternoon, according to Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Ashley Chohlis.

The superintendent told Uvalde school board members at a Monday evening meeting that she had been notified by the Justice Department about the critical incident review’s planned release earlier that day.

The expected federal findings come more than a year after the shooting, which left 19 children and two teachers dead, and as the community is still struggling to figure out why it took 77 minutes to stop the gunman, who had holed up in two adjoining classrooms as more than 370 law enforcement officers arrived to the scene.

The delay contradicted widely taught protocol for active shooter situations that call for police to immediately stop the threat and came even as children inside repeatedly called 911 for help.

A preliminary Texas House investigative committee report released in July 2022 found “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making” by several law enforcement agencies. Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Col. Steven McCraw, has called the response “an abject failure.”

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin has expressed frustration with conflicting narratives provided by officials and called for more transparency from state agencies.

Community grief counselors will be made available after the release of the Justice Department’s report, Chohlis said.

No additional details were provided about the planned release.

“The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses; identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events; and provide a roadmap for community safety and engagement before, during, and after such incidents,” the Justice Department said in a 2022 news release.

The department has not announced it is releasing the report.

Conflicting stories and lingering questions

Officers from 23 agencies, including the US Border Patrol, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the local police department, participated in the response and officials have given conflicting narratives about what happened that day.

Law enforcement experts and victims’ families have questioned whether lives could have been saved if authorities had acted sooner.

Surveillance video of officers waiting in the school’s hallway while the gunman roamed the two classrooms with dead and injured children inside raised questions about the response. Some slain victims were still alive in the time it took officers to breach the classrooms and kill the gunman.

There has also been confusion about exactly who was in charge at the scene. Some investigators, including McCraw, said it should have been former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, though Arredondo has said he did not consider himself to be the incident commander.

Arredondo was fired three months after the shooting.

The more than 90 officers from the Texas Department of Safety who were on scene have also faced scrutiny.

Seven DPS officers were investigated for their responses, the agency told CNN last year. Two were “served with employment discharge notifications, one was served with a formal written reprimand and the remaining four were closed without sustained findings,” the agency said.

Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell previously said she will charge law enforcement officers in relation to the response if warranted. She has said the criminal investigation could take years.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz, Christina Maxouris and Andy Rose contributed to this report.

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