Local inquest on Thursday criticized Texas law enforcement response to gunman who killed 19 students and two teachers in 2022
Uvalde police made “many failures” when responding to a gunman who killed 19 students and two teachers at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school in 2022, the investigator who led the city’s inquest of its local officers said Thursday.
The report for the Uvalde city council on Thursday comes from one of several inquests into the massacre and was conducted by Jesse Prado, an Austin-based investigator and former police detective. Texas lawmakers found in 2022 that nearly 400 local, state and federal officers rushed to the scene but waited more than an hour before confronting the gunman. A Department of Justice report in January criticized the “cascading failures” of responding law enforcement.
A criminal investigation by the office of the Uvalde district attorney, Christina Mitchell, into the law enforcement response to the May 2022 shooting remains open. A grand jury was summoned earlier this year and some law enforcement officials have been asked to testify.
Tensions remain high between Uvalde city officials and the local prosecutor, while the community of more than 15,000, about 85 miles (140km) south-west of San Antonio, is plagued with trauma and divided over accountability.
