I’m actually not going to spend a lot of time on this post because the journalists behind the story deserve all the credit.
ProPublica, PBS Frontline, and The Texas Tribune partnered last month, to bring the public a story about how the students of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, were prepared for an active shooter, but the police weren’t.
Part of the school’s training taught the kids to be quiet when an active shooter was in the building. This includes not responding to someone who says they’re the police. In previous school shootings, some shooters have said they were the police, then shot whoever responded.
The police at Robb Elementary that day assumed that since the classrooms were quiet, the school was empty. They thought that the kids would be screaming or crying if there had been injuries or fatalities. Only by the luck of one police officer who decided to check a classroom a second time was a whole classroom able to be rescued from the school.
Most of the footage used in the Frontline report came from police body cameras from the day of the shooting. With hindsight being 20/20 it’s maddening to watch some of the footage.
Again, there’s a lot of ground to cover with this report, but essentially the mishandling of the situation came down to the fact that no one from several different police organizations wanted to take charge.
I’ll post the YouTube version of the Frontline report below. I implore you to watch it, and to read the report from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, which I’ll link below.
(Sources)
- “Someone Tell Me What to Do”
- Why We’re Publishing Never-Reported Details of the Uvalde School Shooting Before State Investigators
- INSIDE THE UVALDE RESPONSE
Real Crime with Trench Reynolds 