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| AP |
A government report from Uvalde on the massacre at Robb Elementary School, published on Thursday, absolves local police officers of any responsibility in the 2022 incident, in which 19 children and two teachers died. Despite acknowledging several mistakes in the response to the attack, the report defends the officers' actions.
The report's presentation sparked outrage among the victims' relatives, many of whom left the venue halfway through the presentation. The report described the response of the Uvalde Police Department as prompt and appropriate, in contrast to previous state and federal reports that criticized police agencies at all levels.
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The investigator who presented the report, Jesse Prado, a former police detective residing in Austin, blamed the families who rushed to the school that day for jeopardizing the police response. This claim angered several relatives, some of whom left the venue.
Despite the emergency calls from the children trapped in the classrooms, the police forces took more than an hour to enter the classroom and neutralize the aggressor. "You said they did it in good faith. Do you think that's good faith? They stood there for 77 minutes," said Kimberly Mata Rubio, mother of one of the victims, at the end of the presentation. Another attendee shouted: "Cowards!"
Prado described several failures in the response of local, state, and federal agents that day: communication problems, poor training to deal with active shooter situations, lack of available equipment, and delays in entering the classroom. "There were problems all day with communication and the lack of it. The agents had no way of knowing what was planned, what was being said," said Prado.
Despite the criticisms in a Department of Justice report published in January, Prado maintained that his review indicated that the agents showed "immeasurable strength" and "cool heads" as they faced the shooter's gunfire and refrained from firing into a dark classroom.
Prado also claimed that the relatives who arrived at the scene obstructed attempts to establish a chain of command, as police officers had to control parents who were trying to enter the building or begging the police to enter.
The relatives expressed their outrage when Prado briefly left the venue after his presentation. "Bring him back!" several of them shouted. Prado returned, sat down, and listened as the victims' relatives cried and criticized the report, the city council, and the officers who responded to the shooting that day.
"They gave my daughter up for dead (...) These cops were hired to do a job. They didn't do it," said Rubén Zamorra.