WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has named Orange County Sheriff John Mina to a team to aid in a review of the law enforcement response to the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
The Justice Department has named Orange County Sheriff John Mina to a team to aid in a review of the law enforcement response to the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the team during a meeting in his office in Washington on Wednesday. The critical incident review is being led by the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mina was the Orlando police chief when a gunman walked into Pulse nightclub in June 2014, and shot 49 people to death and injured several others. Much like the Uvalde shooting, the Orlando Police Department also faced criticism for waiting over three hours to go after the gunman, who was barricaded inside a bathroom. The Uvalde review will include an examination of police policies, training and communication, along with the deployment of officers and tactics, the Justice Department said. It will also examine who was in command of the incident and how police prepared for potential active-shooter incidents. The team gathered for its first meeting Wednesday around a conference table in Garland’s office, with a few of the members appearing virtually on a large television screen. Garland said the review would be comprehensive, transparent and independent.
“We will be assessing what happened that day,” he said. “We will be doing site visits to the school, we will be conducting interviews of an extremely wide variety of stakeholders, witnesses, families, law enforcement, government officials, school officials, and we will be reviewing the resources that were made available in the aftermath.”
The findings and recommendations will be detailed in a report, which will be made public, he said.
