The Department of Justice has announced that there will be an investigation into the 45-minute to one-hour police response time at the Uvalde school shooting.
The Daily Caller reported The review will be conducted with the Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing to review the “actions and responses” of the Uvalde Police Department during the shooting at Robb Elementary School, according to a DOJ statement.
“At the request of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, the U.S. Department of Justice will conduct a Critical Incident Review of the law enforcement response to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24,” a DOJ spokesperson said.
According to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, many of the shots heard from outside the building while police stood outside were shots being fired at doors and walls to hold the police back. Patrick however wasn’t making excuses for the long response time.
When talking about the 45-minute wait, he said that it was a “bad decision, and that decision cost lives.”
“And so imagine the parent who has to go through this for the rest of their life and they will be thinking, ‘Was my child still alive and could have been saved?’ So that was another fact that we weren’t told. And so this is heartbreaking. This is horrendous.” He concluded.
Patrick also noted, that despite claims that a school security officer was present, there was no officer on campus when the shooter entered the building.