U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is in Uvalde ahead of the Justice Department's release of a critical incident report on the response to the Robb Elementary School shooting.
A Texas House Committee report found 376 law enforcement officers — including U.S. Border Patrol, Texas Department of Public Safety officers, and Uvalde police — waited 77 minutes to confront the gunman. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed.
Shortly after the shooting on May 24, 2022, the DOJ announced it would conduct a review surrounding the response to the shooting.
Families of the victims have been anxiously waiting the findings ever since.
Manuel Rizo lost his 9-year-old niece Jackie Cázares in the Uvalde shooting. He said he hopes the report from the U.S. Department of Justice could bring some closure.
“And hope is that they did a comprehensive review of every single entity’s failure into this including the school district to law enforcement agencies and further down to each individual officer on site," he said.
Rizo said Uvalde families have been waiting for answers into what happened for over a year, since the shooting on May 24, 2022.
He said they have not gotten any answers yet.
The assessment to be released Thursday morning is expected to examine issues including policies, communications, incident command, as well as the post-incident response.
Ashley Chohlis, superintendent at Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, said district counselors will be available for students and staff following the report's release.
Former Uvalde CISD district police chief was fired in August 2022 for his failure to take command on the day of the shooting.
Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell said a criminal investigation in law enforcement failures would continue through this year.
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