Report details 3 missed opportunities to slow, stop Uvalde gunman outside school

A report released Wednesday details three missed opportunities to slow — or even stop — the Uvalde gunman before he entered Robb Elementary School, where he ultimately killed 19 students and two teachers in Texas’ deadliest school shooting.

The 26-page report by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University, commissioned by the Texas Department of Public Safety to assess the response by law enforcement, contains the latest revelations in the efforts to unfold what happened May 24.

Law enforcement has been widely criticized for the response in Uvalde. Eighty minutes elapsed between the first call to 911 and police confronting the shooter, who fired at least 142 rounds, according to a timeline from Texas Department of Public Safety director Steve McCraw.

The report was based on an hourlong incident briefing held for select ALERRT staff on June 1 and was led by an investigating officer with knowledge of the event, ALERRT said. Briefing materials included surveillance footage from the school, Google Maps, a brief cellphone video and a question-and-answer period.

“If any of these three key issues had worked out differently, they could have stopped the tragedy that followed,” the report says.

Outside the school

According to the report, the first in a long series of mistakes started outside the school.

ALERRT said while a teacher closed an exterior door when the lockdown was announced, she did not check to see whether the door was locked. She also did not have the “the proper key or tool to engage the locking mechanism on the door.”

“Because it was not locked, the attacker was able to immediately access the building,” the report says.

However, even if the door was successfully locked, ALERRT noted it was a steel frame with a large glass inlay — which was not made of ballistic glass, meaning the suspect could have shot through it and opened the door regardless.

Second, the report says one of the first responding officers drove through the parking lot on the west side of the building “at a high rate of speed.” The gunman was in the parking lot as the officer drove by, but because he was going too fast, he missed the gunman entirely.

“If the officer had driven more slowly or had parked his car at the edge of the school property and approached on foot, he might have seen the suspect and been able to engage him before the suspect entered the building,” the report says.

The third opportunity occurred when a Uvalde police officer aimed his rifle at the gunman before he entered the school, but waited for permission from a supervisor to open fire. The officer did not hear a response and turned to get confirmation. When he turned back, the report says, the gunman was already inside.

The report does not say why the officer felt he had to ask for permission to shoot, and instead explains he was justified in using deadly force to stop the attacker. The Texas Penal Code says an individual is justified in using deadly force when he believes deadly force “is immediately necessary to prevent the commission of murder,” among other crimes.

In this instance, the report says, the Uvalde officer heard gunshots, or reports of them, and saw the gunman entering the school with a rifle.

“A reasonable officer would conclude in this case, based upon the totality of the circumstances, that use of deadly force was warranted,” the report says.

The report also noted the Uvalde officer, who was about 150 yards from the door the gunman entered, was “well within effective range” to shoot him. The officer said he was concerned that if he missed, the rounds could have injured students, but footage obtained by the Texas Tribune showed the hallways were empty by the time the gunman entered.

“Ultimately, the decision to use deadly force always lies with the officer who will use the force,” the report acknowledges. “If the officer was not confident that he could both hit his target and of his backdrop if he missed, he should not have fired.”

In the hallway

The report also points to three mistakes that took place inside the school.

In the Tribune’s footage, officers don’t appear in the hallway until the gunman is already inside adjoined classrooms 111 and 112, which he entered through another door that was unlocked.

The Uvalde Consolidated ISD had protocols in place requiring doors to remain locked at all times, and the school was on active lockdown. However, an investigating officer told ALERRT the lock on Room 111 had been reported as damaged multiple times, though that detail has not been confirmed through work orders.

The only way to lock the door was to insert a key from the outside. The report said at no point was the gunman observed doing so, meaning Room 111 was unlocked for the duration of the shooting.

Second, the report said responding officers were stationed on both ends of the hallway. In its active shooter training, which it says the “gold standard” for such training nationwide, ALERRT teaches that a single team should consist of no more than four officers, and that team should be in a single area of building at a time because having multiple or splitting an existing team can lead to a crossfire shootout.

“If the suspect had emerged from the classrooms, officers from both teams presumably would have opened fire resulting in a high likelihood of officers at either end of the hallway shooting officers at the other end,” the report says.

Just two months before the massacre, Uvalde school district officers underwent active shooter training with a manual from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the state agency that oversees all peace officers.

The third mistake ALERRT found was that officers “lost momentum” and stopped moving toward the gunfire. The report said officers initially approached the classrooms, but the shooter fired at three of them through the door, grazing two as they all bolted back to either end of the hallway. Those officers stayed there — never firing a shot.

While one team was not visible on camera, the group that retreated to the T-intersection of the west and south hallways was 67 feet from the doors of rooms 111 and 112.

“We commend the officers for quickly entering the building and moving toward the sounds of gunfire,” the report says. “However, when the officers were fired at, momentum was lost. The officers fell back, and it took more than an hour to regain momentum and gain access to critically injured people.”

ALERRT teaches officers they are second in a hierarchical list of three priorities after the shooter is contained. Innocent civilians are saved first, and the attacker, if still alive, is treated last.

“This ordering means that we expect officers to assume risk to save innocent lives,” the report says. “There is a chance that officers will be shot, injured, or even killed while responding. This is something that every officer should be acutely aware of when they become a law enforcement officer.”

Lack of a plan

Law enforcement officials across the state have agreed the decision not to confront the shooter sooner cost lives, with most placing the blame on Pete Arredondo, the school district police chief, who said afterward he didn’t believe he was in charge. Yet, as one of the first responding officers, he prevented officers from entering the classrooms, even though children and teachers were still in danger.

Arredondo announced Friday that he will resign from his seat on the Uvalde City Council. He was elected to the council position May 7 and was sworn in on May 31, behind closed doors. He was placed on administrative leave from his position as police chief June 22.

The report mentions him by name only three times while laying out the timeline of the shooting. ALERRT did note Arredondo called SWAT to assist, but said because it takes time for a team to arrive, it was “imperative that an immediate action plan is created.”

No one on scene created such a plan, the report says.

“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from [entering rooms] 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” McCraw, the DPS director, testified before the state Senate.

“The officers have weapons, the children had none,” he said. “The officers had body armor, the children had none. The officers had training, the subject had none.”

In a statement Wednesday night, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called the report difficult to read and said there would be additional reports in the coming weeks and months from agencies including the FBI and Texas Rangers that would clarify what happened at the school.

“I urge Texans to read the report for themselves so they know the truth,” Patrick said.