The Uvalde report

The U.S. Department of Justice issued its final report on the school shooting at Robb elementary in Uvalde, Texas.
The scathing report correctly identifies multiple failures from the initial response and throughout the duration but ignores the reality of smaller police agency response. In many smaller police agencies, the Police Chief is one of the initial responders. In this specific case, the Police Chiefs of both the Uvalde Police Department and the School District were inside the school throughout the incident.
The fact they were inside the inner perimeter precludes either of them from establishing an incident command center on the outside. The question is then raised as to why the Texas Department of Public Safety or the County Sheriff’s Department did not take the initiative and establish a Command Post to oversee the multiple agency response to the incident. It would have also been able to get ‘eyes’ into the classroom through the rifle scope of a sniper, providing real time information to the officers on the inside.
This incident was unique because it occurred in a small classroom presenting multiple issues had a breech been made. The officers inside the inner perimeter lacked the tools to make a safe entry, thereby increasing the possibility of ‘friendly fire’ casualties as well as risk to the officers as the situation transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject from the perspective of the commanders inside the inner perimeter.
The knowledge of the actual happenings in the classroom would have escalated the response requiring immediate entry to neutralize the actions of the suspect. The Border Patrol SRT had the proper equipment and were able to neutralize the threat. The reality is that getting a tactical team to make entry is approximately forty-five minutes from the time of the activation.
Hopefully, this tragedy will awaken agencies of all sizes to better prepare for a fluid incident.
Active shooter responses have gone through multiple transitions since Columbine in 1999. They were revised again following Sandy Hook. Prior to Columbine, the procedure was to secure the outer perimeter until the tactical team arrived. That resulted in Columbus, Ohio Police creating “quad” by which the first four officers to arrive formed a tactical team to make entry. After Sandy Hook, the response was modified to have the first responding officer enter the school to search for the shooter.
Patrol officers lack the necessary tools to make a tactical entry. That could be resolved by equipping a vehicle with t tactical shield so that is available to the initial response team.
Each event is a learning experience (sadly) to prepare for the next event. There will always be criticism of the response when it does not have the desired outcome which is no loss of life.