Bodycam Video, Report Exposes “Systemic, Egregious” Law Enforcement Failures In Uvalde School Mass Shooting

The Texas state House report into the Uvalde elementary school shooting in May that killed 21 people, including 19 children, said the massacre was unable to be stopped due to “systemic failures and egregious poor decision-making.” 

The report obtained by the Texas Tribune attempts to piece together what happened during the 77 minutes after the alleged gunman, 18-year-old Uvalde High School dropout Salvador Ramos, entered Robb Elementary School until the point he was killed by a Border Patrol agent.

“There is no one to whom we can attribute malice or ill motives. Instead, we found systemic failures and egregious poor decision making,” the report said, noting “shortcomings and failures of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District [CISD] and of various agencies and officers of law enforcement” and “an overall lackadaisical approach.”

As Jack Phillips reports for The Epoch Times, those claims appear to coincide with statements made by top Texas officials days after the shootings.

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said May 27 that it was the “wrong decision” not to engage with the shooter, Salvador Ramos.

Meanwhile, surveillance footage from Robb Elementary School released on July 12 shows officers waiting around more than 45 minutes before several officers approached the classroom where Ramos had entered.

JUST IN: Exclusive body cam video from the law enforcement response to the Uvalde, TX school shooting. @ShimonPro obtained the video from the city’s Mayor.
It shows just how chaotic the situation was: pic.twitter.com/VppNuJ1d7b

— Ryan Nobles (@ryanobles) July 17, 2022

The officers didn’t enter. It took more than 75 minutes for law enforcement to kill Ramos, 18, after he entered the building.

This goes against EVERYTHING we who were in law enforcement were trained to do….

Uvalde school police chief, trying to negotiate with an active shooter: “Sir, if you can hear me, please put your firearm down, sir.” pic.twitter.com/9UjbPY8cDf

— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) July 17, 2022

The report said that law enforcement failed to quickly confront the suspect and instead retreated to safety.

“In this crisis, no responder seized the initiative to establish an incident command post,” it states.

“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.”

Some individual officers acted without instruction to try to reach the shooter and might have been able to do so if they had more backup, according to the paper.

“Given the information known about victims who survived through the time of the breach and who later died on the way to the hospital, it is plausible that some victims could have survived if they had not had to wait 73 additional minutes for rescue,” the report reads.

A force of 376 law enforcement officers responded to the mass shooting, according to the House panel, which said that there wasn’t clear leadership as they responded.

Texas lawmakers on July 17 noted that Ramos was born in Fargo, North Dakota, before he was moved to Texas when he was a child. Ramos also may have been sexually abused as a child, the report states.

Friends of the suspect, including a girlfriend, told investigators that Ramos became increasingly depressed during the COVID-19 pandemic. At one point, Ramos told the girlfriend that he wouldn’t live past age 18.

Ramos in late 2021 also allegedly posted a video of himself holding a dead cat inside a bag. Footage also showed the future school shooter dry firing BB guns at people from a car, according to the report.

In the wake of the shooting, which left 19 students and two teachers dead, congressional lawmakers used the tragedy to pass a gun control bill that included funding to bolster red flag laws and other measures, which was signed into law on June 25 by President Joe Biden.