Families of the victims of the Uvalde school shooting rekindled their demands for more accountability following the release of a damning report by the Department of Justice, which found "cascading failures" in law enforcement's response to the situation.
"I'm very surprised that no one has ended up in prison," Velma Lisa Duran, whose sister Irma Garcia was one of the two teachers killed, told The Associated Press. "It's sort of a slap in the face that all we get is a review ... we deserve justice."
Five officers lost their jobs, including two Department of Public Safety officers and Uvalde's school police chief, Pete Arredondo, who was the on-site commander during the attack. But the report doesn't clarify whether more people will be held accountable for the failure to respond appropriately to the shooting.
Moreover, there have been no charges stemming from the criminal investigation led by the Texas Rangers.
The DoJ report, released on Thursday, found "cascading failures" in the response by law enforcement to the shooting where 19 children and two staff members were killed in 2022.
The lengthy report, extending over 600 pages, also concluded that police officers "demonstrated no urgency" in setting up a command post and didn't treat the situation as an active shooter one.
The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022 — and the response by officials in the hours and days after — 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," reads a paragraph of a statement released by Attorney General Merrick Garland along with the report.
The victims and survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School deserved better," he added.
At the time of the shooting, Robb Elementary School had some 600 students, almost 90% of them Latinos. According to 2020 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, almost 82% of the town's 15,200 residents identified as Latino. The shooter himself was 19-year-old Salvador Ramos, of Latino descent.
Police officers arrived in the scene less than three minutes after Ramos, but fled after he started shooting from inside a classroom and shrapnel hit two officers. Footage that surfaced in the following months showed police waiting in the hallway while Ramos was inside the classroom.
The images caused generalized uproar as it showed police refusing to engage for about an hour. Ramos was killed 84 minutes after arriving at the school.
"They just didn't act. They just didn't move," Uvalde County Commissioner Ronald Garza said after the footage was released. "I just don't know what was going through those policemen's minds that tragic day, but ... there was just no action on their part."
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