UVALDE, TEXAS (AP) -Two months after the Uvalde school massacre, Texas state police on Monday announced an internal review into the actions of dozens of troopers who were at Robb Elementary during 73 minutes of bewildering inaction by law enforcement as a gunman slaughtered 19 children and two teachers.
The announcement appeared to widen the fallout of a damning 80-page report released over the weekend by the Texas House that revealed failures at all levels of law enforcement and identified 91 state troopers at the scene – more than all Uvalde officers combined.
It also amounted to a public shift by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) which until now has largely criticised local authorities for failing to confront the gunman sooner. The report made public on Sunday laid bare for the first time just how massive a presence state police and United States (US) Border Patrol had on the scene during one of the worst school shootings in US history.
“You got 91 troopers on the scene. You got all the equipment you could possibly want, and you’re listening to the local school cop?” said state Senator Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde and who has accused DPS of seeking to minimise its role in the response.
The report puts a new spotlight on the roles of state and federal agencies whose leaders, unlike local authorities, haven’t had to sit through meetings where they were confronted by the furious parents of the dead children.
Texas DPS did not put a timeline on when the review would be complete. It said the actions of every trooper, state police agent and Texas Ranger on the scene would be examined “to determine if any violations of policy, law, or doctrine occurred”.