In total, 376 agents intervened in the Robb Elementary School school, reveal elected officials from the Chamber of Representatives of Texas in a report. The officer in charge of the Uvalde police command that day was suspended.
Le Monde with AFP
A “chaotic” situation, an absence of command, “apathetic” agents: a Texan parliamentary commission of inquiry has broken down on Sunday, July 17, all the police services involved in the response to the school in the school d’Uvalde, which killed 21 on May 24. The report takes no detour: the officer in charge of the police in Uvalde that day, Mariano Pargas, is pointed out and has already been thanked.
The mayor of this city of Texas Don McLaughlin also promises an in -depth investigation into the command of Lieutenant Pargas. Within the Uvalde police, “two or perhaps three” agents have left their work according to him.
a few weeks ago, the police chief of the Uvalde school district, Pete Arredondo, had also been suspended. “He did not assume his responsibility as commander” and he made analysis errors because he did not have all the information, also estimate the Texans parliamentarians.
According to this report, the police “did not respect their training” and “did not place the lives of innocent victims before their own security”. Yet there were 376 on the spot. Different services were represented: border guards, state police, city, members of local sheriff services or elite forces. But between the arrival of the first police officers and the death of the killer, 73 minutes have passed, an “unacceptable” period “linked” an absence of command which could have contributed to the loss of lives “, they write.
“Absolute failure”
It is “likely that most of the victims perished immediately after the first shots”, some died during their transfer to the hospital and it is “plausible” that they could have survived if they had been more rescued Quickly, assert the representatives.
The Director of Public Security of Texas, Steven McCraw had already described “absolute failure” The response of the police: ” The attitude of all the agents was apathetic “,” the scene was chaotic, without anyone being clearly in charge or directing the answer “. The videos from the cameras carried by the police will be made public according to the mayor of Uvalde, Don McLaughlin.
The report was presented to the relatives of the victims who, for weeks, regretted the lack of transparency of the authorities, suspected of wanting to conceal the failures of the police. Critics had increased after the publication this week of an almost unbearable video showing the arrival of the shooter on the scene with an assault rifle, then the long waiting of the agents in a corridor of the school.