UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The Justice Department stated Sunday it should review the regulation enforcement response to the Texas school shooting, an uncommon federal look again prompted by questions in regards to the shifting and at occasions contradictory information from authorities which have enraged a group in shock and sorrow.
Department spokesman Anthony Coley stated the review can be performed in a good, neutral and impartial method and the findings can be made public. The announcement got here as President Joe Biden was visiting Uvalde, the place he and first woman Jill Biden paid their respects at a memorial to the 19 college students and two lecturers killed at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday.
The purpose of the review, which the mayor requested, is “to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and response that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events,” Coley stated in an announcement.
Handling the review is the division’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. It was not instantly clear how the review can be performed, whether or not regulation enforcement officers may very well be compelled to cooperate within the review and when it could be accomplished.
Such a review is considerably uncommon and most after-action reviews that come after a mass shooting are usually compiled by native regulation enforcement businesses or exterior teams. The Justice Department performed comparable evaluations after 14 individuals have been killed in a terrorist assault in San Bernardino, California, in 2015, and after the mass shooting on the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the deadliest assault on the LGBTQ group in U.S. historical past that left 49 individuals useless and 53 individuals wounded.
The frustration, anger and questions in regards to the response from police grew deeper on Friday after authorities revealed that regardless of repeated 911 calls from college students and lecturers, the school district’s police chief had informed greater than a dozen officers to wait in a school hallway. Officials stated he believed the suspect was barricaded inside adjoining school rooms and that there was not an energetic assault.
The revelation brought on extra grief and raised new questions on whether or not extra lives have been misplaced as a result of officers didn’t act sooner to cease the gunman, who was finally killed by Border Patrol tactical officers.
Biden has not spoken publicly in regards to the police response to the shooting.
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Balsamo reported from Washington.
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More on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings