Uvalde police officers subpoenaed by Texas grand jury over school shooting response – report
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Law enforcement agents who responded to the 2022 Uvalde school mass shooting have been ordered to appear before a grand jury investigating police response, according to a report.
On 24 May 2022, a gunman walked into the Robb Elementary School, Texas, and killed 21 people, including 19 students and two adults.
Questions were raised on police response as it took 77 minutes to stop the 18-year-old shooter after he first entered the school.
Multiple officers have been subpoenaed for in-person testimonies set to begin next week at the Uvalde County Courthouse, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
Officers from agencies, including the Texas Department of Public Safety who responded to the shooting would be called before the 12-member panel. The testimonies are expected to run into months as the 21-month investigation continues.
The grand jurors are expected to review a substantial amount of forensic evidence collected at the scene, along with audio recordings of radio communications and videos that offer a detailed, minute-by-minute chronicle of the events that transpired on that day.
Three sources familiar with the matter told the newspaper about the subpoenas but did not provide the exact number of officers who received them.
It comes after a damning new Department of Justice report that Uvalde police showed “no urgency” and their tactical blunders cost lives.
The report found “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training” by the Uvalde police may have cost innocent lives. It further found that Uvalde police “demonstrated no urgency” in establishing a command post and failed in its duty to respond to the attack with speed and efficiency.
“The response to the May 24, 2022, mass casualty incident at Robb Elementary School was a failure,” the DOJ wrote in the 575-page report, released 20 months after the carnage.
The Uvalde police critically failed to recognize the gunman as an active shooter, and instead treated him like a barricaded suspect, according to the DOJ report.
