Uvalde Shooting Preliminary Report Details 'Systemic Failures and Egregious Poor Decision Making'

Mar. 15, 2025

Uvalde families grieve for loved ones.Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

On May 24, 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos entered the school through an open back door and beganfiring more than 100 roundsinside two fourth-grade classrooms. A total of21 people were killed, including two teachers and 19 children, after a gunmanopened fire at the Uvalde, Texas school.

The response to the shooting has been scrutinized intensely since the incident, resulting in the resignation of the city’s mayor. Many parents of victims have also shared how they feel that officers didn’t do enough.

A 77-page document released on Sunday said there was “an overall lackadaisical approach” from law enforcement at the scene.

Robb Elementary School.ALLISON DINNER/AFP via Getty

The investigation revealed there were several unlocked doors at Robb Elementary, through which the gunman gained access to classrooms. Although safety protocols were in place, they were not adhered to.

The committee cited witnesses who said doors were often left unlocked, sometimes even propped open, because of a shortage of keys. Particularly in the case of substitute teachers, the report said, keys were not given to adults managing and supervising classrooms.

Arnulfo Reyes,a teacher in Rom 111 who was shot and survived, said he told the school his door lock was faulty, but the report states that “no one placed a written work order for repair.” The report notes that the head custodian at Robb Elementary testified that he never heard about any problems with the doors for Rooms 111 or 112, “and if he had, he would have created a work order.”

“Robb Elementary had a culture of noncompliance with safety policies requiring doors to be kept locked, which turned out to be fatal,” the report said.

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Another factor contributing to relaxed vigilance on campus was the frequency of security alerts and campus lockdowns resulting from a recent rise in the “occurrence of human traffickers trying to outrun the police, usually ending with the smuggler crashing the vehicle and the passengers fleeing in all directions.”

The report said there had been around 50 of them in the three months leading up to the school shooting, which started when the gunman crashed a car in the parking lot and began firing at two people who ran over to help.

Poor internet coverage and phone habits may have also contributed to the delay in teachers getting their classrooms locked down, the document states. The lockdown was never announced over the PA system.

“If the alert had reached more teachers sooner, it is likely that more could have been done to protect them and their students,” the report found.

The massacre is the deadliest school shooting since theSandy Hook Elementary School shootingnearly a decade ago.

In JuneDepartment of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, called the response of law enforcement an “abject failure” and said Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police ChiefPete Arredondowas primarily at fault for the tragedy being fatal for so many.

However, the new report states that when “better trained and better equipped” officials came on the scene and saw the chaos, they failed to follow their training. According to the investigation, 376 law enforcement officers responded to the scene and the majority were representing federal organizations. UCISD had five officers on the scene. The rest consisted of 149 U.S. Border Patrol agents, 91 state police officers, 25 Uvalde police officers and 16 sheriff’s deputies.

RELATED VIDEO: Uvalde Footage Shows Cops Backing Off Classroom After Getting Shot at, Not Confronting Shooter for 77 Minutes

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“Despite an obvious atmosphere of chaos, the ranking officers of other responding agencies did not approach the Uvalde CISD chief of police or anyone else perceived to be in command to point out the lack of and need for a command post, or to offer that specific assistance,” the investigation found.

source: people.com