It was only a matter of time before an investigation was opened. After all, one of the most important issues that stood out with the Uvalde school shooting was the police response. What took them so long to respond? Would things have been different had they entered the moment that they arrived on the scene?
The Justice Department has established a nine-member team who will review the Uvalde Police Department’s response to the shooting.
There’s been a lot of speculation about what the officers did that day. We’ve heard how they stood outside to “discuss” a plan. We’ve heard how one officer showed up, pulled his own child out of the school, and went home. And we heard how the only reason that the massacre was finally ended was because of an off-duty Border Patrol agent entering the school.
Essentially, as far as anyone is concerned, the Uvalde Police Department did nothing to end the massacre. If anything, they allowed it to go on much longer than was necessary.
The explanations that have been given to local authorities have been extremely contradictory.
Uvalde’s mayor is the one to have requested the critical incident review. Attorney General Merrick Garland explained, “There is nothing that we can do that can undo the pain.” However, the Justice Department can, at the very least, assist with “assessing what happened.”
The investigation will help to answer a lot of the questions that every parent, teacher, and student around the nation has.
How did the shooter get inside? Why was the shooter allowed to be in there for close to an hour without police intervention? What can the police do differently next time as a way to reduce the carnage?
These are all going to be addressed, according to Garland.
The Justice Department has the power to conduct independent reviews when there is an incident with at least one death that can be attributed to the actions (or inactions) of law enforcement officers.
Based on the findings of the review, the Justice Department can also recommend that charges be filed in the event that some kind of wrongdoing is found.
The team that will be investigating what the police did and didn’t do includes a number of former police chiefs, including one who served at Virginia Tech, which was the site of a massacre in 2007.
Throughout the review, they won’t look solely at the actions not taken by the Uvalde Police Department. The command structure of the day will be reviewed to see who made the order not to enter the school. Additionally, the entire department’s procedures and training will be reviewed to see why there was so much hesitation.
Once the report is finished, it will be made public.
As Newsbreak reported, “the department is now facing scathing criticism from locals, some of whom have demanded the chief and others to resign.”
The results of the report will likely be used to provide guidance to more law enforcement agencies around the country. Schools, too, can use the report so that they can look at better ways to secure their facilities. They can share the information with school resource officers to ensure that there are no such problems in the future.
As Democrats race to ban guns, the reality is that there is a bigger issue – the school wasn’t sufficiently secure, and the police failed to do their job. This report is likely to be eye-opening in a number of ways.
