Grief compounded by police actions
A report released in January found Texas police had missed 10 opportunities to stop the man who killed Ms Garcia and 20 others during the 2022 massacre.
In findings that further angered victims’ families, an independent investigation last week acknowledged missteps by authorities but ultimately defended the actions of local police.
The former Uvalde mayor who had ordered an investigation into the actions of police said Friday he was surprised the report defended officers and believes the acting chief on the scene had failed during response to the shooting.
“What I’ve seen so far, it’s not quite what I was expecting,” said Don McLaughlin, who stepped down as mayor of the small Texas city last year and is now the Republican nominee for a seat in the state Legislature.
In the nearly two years since the shooting, families have accused police of a leadership void during the 77 minutes that elapsed between gunman Salvador Ramos’s arrival at the school and police confronting him.
Part of the delay was caused by officers spending 40 minutes searching for a key to a shared classroom space that they believed to be locked, even though it had been open.
CCTV footage from the school showed one officer stopping to check his phone while another applied hand sanitiser as armed police waited in the corridor.
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