SYSTEM FAILURE

Video Evidence Suggests Uvalde School Police Chief Was Unfairly Blamed for Delay

Video analysis by The New York Times suggests that other officers repeated many of the same mistakes as the incident commander at Uvalde.

New frame-by-frame video analysis of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, suggests officials’ narrative that a 77-minute police delay was caused singularly by the inaction of a school police chief isn’t quite accurate. The footage makes clear that the Texas Department of Public Safety “miscast” Uvalde School Police Chief Pete Arredondo’s role, suggesting the failures of that day were caused solely by his orders for the officers to stand down while they waited for back-up, The New York Times reports. But others, including DPS troopers and the feds, also played a role in those decisions and were calling the shots earlier than has been suggested. The new video evidence, scrutinized by the Times, indicates that an elite border patrol group, BORTAC, took over the response about halfway through, and repeated many of the same mistakes that the incident commander was grilled over—losing 37 minutes before entering the room. According to radio traffic, BORTAC learned immediately that the gunman was trapped inside Room 111 and Room 112 with a number of children. But instead of engaging the situation, officers are seen wasting precious minutes, sorting through a pile of keys to unlock a janitors closet, while others test out breaching tools to knock the door down before prioritizing officers lives over entering the room. The May 24 shooting was one of the deadliest in the nation’s history, claiming the lives of 19 children and two adults, and injuring another 18.