US Justice Department to review police response to Texas school shooting

Washington [US], May 30 (ANI)

The US Department of Justice on Sunday announced that they will review police response to Texas school shooting and will publish a report of the findings.

"At the request of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, the U.S. Department of Justice will conduct a Critical Incident Review of the law enforcement response to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24," said US Department of Justice spokesman Anthony Coley. "The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events. The review will be conducted with the Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing," he added.

This comes as local police are under scrutiny in the aftermath of the mass shooting, which killed 19 children and two teachers.

On Friday, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said the decision, made by the incident commander not to enter the Uvalde school in the wake of the shooting and wait for the tactical team, was wrong.

"The decision was made that this was a barricaded subject situation, there was time to retreat the kids and wait for a tactical team with the equipment to go ahead and breach the door and take on the subject at that point," McCraw said during a press conference.

"There were 19 officers there, in fact, there were plenty of officers to do whatever needed to be done with one exception - the incident commander inside believed he needed more equipment and more officers to do a tactical breach at that point... Where I'm sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period."

US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived in Uvalde, Texas, on Sunday to pay their respects to victims of the school shooting.

Earlier, Biden had condemned the attack on students saying that gun laws cannot prevent every tragedy but they have a positive impact pointing out that mass shootings tripled after the assault weapon ban expired.

"There's too much violence. Too much fear. Too much grief," Biden said when delivering the commencement address at the University of Delaware on Saturday. "Let's be clear: Evil came to that elementary school classroom in Texas, to that grocery store in New York, to far too many places where innocents have died."

The gunman's motive in Uvalde is still under investigation, officials said Friday.

But the Texas Department of Public Safety on Friday said there was a 90-minute gap between when the gunman entered the school and when U.S. Border Patrol agents unlocked the classroom door and killed him, including 45 minutes when 20 officers stood in a hallway outside of the classrooms before opening the door with a master key.