Uvalde video raises more calls for police accountability

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
14 Jul 2022 13:16

A nearly 80-minute hallway surveillance video has publicly shown, for the first time, the armed officers as fully armed, yet hesitant.

Uvalde's video raises more calls for police accountability.

The video taken inside Robb Elementary School reveals law enforcement's perplexing passivity during the May massacre of 19 children and two teachers, folks in Uvalde are asking, "Will police face consequences?"

Only one police cop from the site of Texas' school shooting is reported to be on leave. Authorities have yet to release the names of the officers who milled in and out of a hallway near the adjoining fourth-grade classrooms where the gunman was firing for more than an hour. And, over two months later, there is still confusion about who was in command.

The Austin American-Statesman published a nearly 80-minute hallway surveillance video that revealed for the first time — with disturbing and painful clarity — a hesitant and haphazard tactical response by fully armed officers that the head of Texas' state police has condemned as a failure and some Uvalde residents have blasted as cowardly.

However, it is uncertain whether the conduct – or inaction – of officers at the school on May 24 will result in much more than condemnation, even as calls for responsibility and outrage grow. City and state officials have asked residents to wait for the results of the investigations.

There is evidence that impatience is increasing: Residents yelled from their seats during a City Council meeting on Tuesday, hours after the video was released, demanding to know whether the officers involved in the shooting were still on the force or getting paid. Members of the council did not respond. “What about the cops?” one person yelled.

The police ran away

The footage from an inside school hallway camera shows the gunman entering the building with an AR-15-style rifle and includes 911 tape of a teacher screaming, "Get down! Enter your rooms! "Go to your rooms!"

Two officers approach the classrooms minutes after the gunman enters then flee amid gunshots. Minutes pass, and more gunshots are heard from the classrooms as other officers from various agencies approach. After more than an hour, a team eventually advances down the corridor, breaches the classrooms, and ends the massacre.

Several officers are visible in the footage, some of them are armed with guns and bulletproof shields. During the extended wait to meet the gunman, one man in body armor and a vest labeled "sheriff" squeezes a few pulls from a dispenser situated on the wall.

It's a far cry from the image described by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott the day after the massacre when he hailed the quick reaction and cops who "showed amazing courage by running toward gunfire." Abbott later stated that he was given incorrect information but did not specify who provided it to him.

One charged cop

After the 2018 shooting at Parkland High School in Florida that killed 17 people, a deputy who knew the gunman was loose but refused to go inside was arrested on criminal charges.

Legal experts have called that an extremely rare case of someone essentially being charged for not going into harm’s way and have expressed skepticism about the case, which is set for trial in February.

Mayor Don McLaughlin of Uvalde said it was too early to judge whether any policemen should be removed from the department. “I don’t know they need to step down,” he said. “But everything needs to be reviewed.”

So far, only one cop has been publicly reported to be on leave: Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police chief who also resigned from his newly elected City Council seat last month. He has denied that he was in control of the scene, as stated by state police.

Greg Shaffer, a Dallas-based security consultant and retired member of the FBI's hostage rescue team, believes the police in the video should change careers.

“I think everyone in that hallway should reconsider their career choice,” he said. “If you don’t have the courage and the mindset to run toward gunfire, as a police officer, then you’re in the wrong profession.”