New evidence from the Uvalde school shooting suggests responding officers were confused over who was in charge, report shows

A makeshift memorial in front of the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where the mass shooting took place. Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Records of the Uvalde shooting show some officers thought the school police chief was in charge. However, the chief said on June 9 that he had no idea he was in command of the incident.

Footage and transcripts reviewed by the Texas Tribune highlighted the confusion at the scene. Some law enforcement officers who responded to last month’s deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, believed that the school district police chief was in charge, contradicting his later assertion that he didn’t know he was the incident commander, The Texas Tribune reported. Video footage and body camera transcripts of the massacre reviewed by The Tribune’s Terri Langford showed the haphazard approach behind the 77 minutes it took law enforcement to eliminate the 18-year-old gunman, who killed 19 children and two teachers.

Uvalde School Police Chief Pete Arredondo, one of the first officers who entered the building, was later identified as the incident commander by Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). However, Arredondo told the Tribune on June 9 that he had no idea he was in command — a belief that other responding officers were seemingly unaware of. Per body camera transcripts, one officer said around 20 minutes into the attack that “the chief is in charge,” the Tribune reported.

Part of the chaos surrounding the law enforcement response may have stemmed from a misunderstanding over who was in command of the response to the incident. Around 22 minutes into the attack, a DPS special agent on the scene expressed frustration that they hadn’t breached the classroom yet, The Tribune reported, citing camera footage from the hallway outside the room where the shooter had holed up. However, the agent was told there was no such order to do so, per the outlet.

“It sounds like a hostage rescue situation,” the agent said, per the Tribune. “Sounds like a UC [undercover] rescue. They should probably go in.

“”Don’t you think we should have a supervisor approve that?” responded a police officer, who the Tribune reported could have been either a city or school police officer. “He’s not my supervisor,” the DPS agent said before leaving the hallway, per the Tribune. The outlet also reported that Arredondo appeared to direct officers to start evacuating students from other classrooms, though he told the outlet that he hadn’t given any orders.

Another episode highlighted a lack of information on the situation among all officers on the ground. According to the Tribune, the DPS special agent who arrived 20 minutes after the shooting started asked other officers at the scene if there were still children in the classrooms. “If there is, then they just need to go in,” he told them, per the outlet.

However, he was told that “it is unknown at this time. ” “Ya’ll don’t know if there’s kids in there? If there’s kids in there we need to go in there,” the special agent said, per the Tribune. “Whoever is in charge will determine that,” an officer told him, according to the outlet.

While officers at the scene were equipped with rifles and four ballistic shields at least 30 minutes into the attack, they waited for an additional 40 minutes before storming the classroom in which the gunman was hiding. One of the teachers who was killed, Eva Mireles, phoned her husband, a school district police officer, and told him she was shot and bleeding heavily, per the Tribune, raising the possibility that there may have been time to save her. Read the original article on Insider.