Texas House Committee Highlights 'Systemic Failures' in Uvalde School Shooting Response
Summary from the AllSides News Team
The Texas House committee investigating the Uvalde school shooting released a new report on Sunday that found multiple "systemic failures" occurred leading up to the deadly incident.
The 77-page assessment is the first to highlight the controversial delayed response of local, state and federal law enforcement to what ended up being the third-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. The report found that the 376 officers at the scene "failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety" and lacked the initiative to lead the response and "address the unfolding chaos."
While the assessment concluded that the "void in leadership" that day "could have contributed to the loss of life," it criticized "the entirety of law enforcement" rather than individual officers. The report also emphasized a number of faults with the school's safety protocols, including leaving doors unlocked due to a shortage of keys and poor wireless signal that contributed to the delayed response to the intruder alert.
Some left-rated outlets highlighted how the narrative that the responding officers were heroes was "fully decimated" last week when leaked surveillance footage showed that officers waited more than an hour inside the school before killing the gunman. Reports from the right focused more on how the committee recognized some individual officers that "acted without instruction" to take out the shooter but ultimately didn't receive enough support from other officers.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Left
Texas House report on Uvalde shooting blames all agencies at the sceneThe most exhaustive report yet on the May 24 mass shooting inside a Uvalde, Tex., elementary school spread blame across every law enforcement agency responding to the attack, faulting local police for mistakes and more experienced agencies for failing to take charge.
Nearly 400 local, state and federal law enforcement officers were at the scene that day, including 91 state troopers — none of whom took the initiative to lead the response, the Texas House investigative report said. The school district police chief, Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, wrote its active shooter...
From the Center
Report details 'systemic failures,' 'egregious' decisions in Uvalde shooting responseFor families in Uvalde, Sunday brought with it the weight of the most exhaustive account of their loved one's final moments yet. In a long-awaited, 77-page report, a Texas House committee concluded there is not one person to blame, but instead a long series of "systemic failures and egregious poor decision making" that allowed the deadliest school shooting in state history to unfold May 24.
The report, reviewed Sunday by The Dallas Morning News, is the second to examine the law enforcement response in the past two weeks. On July...
From the Right
Texas House probe on Uvalde shooting cites multiple failures: reportA special Texas House investigative committee probing the Uvalde school massacre found multiple failures occurred leading up to the horror and involved everyone from law enforcement to social-media platforms, a report said Sunday.
Other entities to blame included the school itself, Robb Elementary, and the shooter’s family, CNN said, noting it had an early copy of the probe’s finding.
The panel was also set to officially release surveillance footage of the school’s hallway during the May 24 attack, which left 21 people dead. The Austin American-Statesman published the surveillance footage Tuesday after it was leaked...
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