Only one officer from the scene of the deadliest school shooting in Texas history is known to be on leave. Authorities have not yet released the names of the officers who for more than an hour walked in and out of a hallway near the adjacent fourth-grade classrooms where the gunman opened fire. And nearly two months after the massacre, there is still disagreement over who was responsible. A nearly 80-minute runway surveillance video published by the Austin American-Statesman showed publicly for the first time — with disturbing and painful clarity — a hesitant and haphazard tactical response by fully armed officers that the Texas state police chief has condemned as a failure and some Uvalde residents have been called cowards. But it’s unclear whether the actions — or inaction — of officers at the school on May 24 will draw more than criticism, even as demands for accountability and anger mount. City and state leaders urged people to let the investigations take place. There are signs that impatience is growing: Hours after the video was released, residents shouted from their seats at a City Council meeting Tuesday, demanding to know whether the officers involved in the shooting were still in the military or were being paid. Council members did not respond. “What about the cops?” one person shouted. Police officers enjoy formidable legal protections, set up with the idea that their jobs often require life-and-death situations under high pressure. Even with the officers’ hesitation caught on video, police experts say it’s hard to predict how likely they are to face discipline or legal consequences. “It’s going to come down to what a reasonable police officer would have realized at the time,” Bowling Green State University criminologist Philip Stinson said. Video from a hallway camera inside the school 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 police officers approach the classrooms moments after the gunman enters, then run back amid the sounds of gunfire. From there, minutes pass and more gunshots ring out from the ranks as additional officers from multiple agencies arrive. More than an hour passes before a group finally advances down the corridor, breaching the ranks and ending the carnage. More than a dozen officers – some armed with rifles and bulletproof shields – can be seen at some points in the video. During the long wait to confront the gunman, a man in body armor and a vest that says “sheriff” squeezes a few puffs of hand sanitizer from a wall-mounted dispenser. It’s a starkly different scene from the one Republican Gov. Greg Abbott described the day after the shooting, when he praised the swift response and the officers who “showed amazing courage by running toward the gunfire.” Abbott later said he was given incorrect information, but did not identify by whom. This is just one example of the inaccurate and conflicting statements given by authorities in the seven weeks since the shooting. Asked Wednesday if any officers should face discipline for their inaction, Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze said the governor “believes it would be premature to decide on any action” until the investigations are complete. After the 2018 shooting at Parkland High School in Florida that killed 17 people, a deputy who knew the gunman was on the loose but refused to go inside was arrested on criminal charges. Legal experts have called it an extremely rare case of someone being charged with essentially no endangerment and have expressed skepticism about the case, which will go to trial in February. Former U.S. Attorney Joe Brown, who spent two decades as a Republican district attorney in North Texas, said there is “no criminal law for dereliction of duty” and that the criminal liability of police under such circumstances “has a huge social cost.” But he said officers who fail to fulfill their “moral duty to intervene” could face ridicule or being shot. Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said it was too early to decide whether any officers should be removed. “I don’t know that they should resign,” he said. “But everything has to be reviewed.” So far, officials have publicly confirmed only one officer on leave: Pete Arredondo, the police chief of the Uvalde school district, who also resigned from his new position on the City Council last month. He disputed the state police’s characterization that he was in charge of the scene. A spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said no troopers there were suspended. Uvalde police and sheriff’s office officials did not respond to questions about whether any of their officers have been suspended or placed on leave. Greg Shafer, a Dallas-based security consultant and retired FBI hostage rescue team member, said at the very least the officers in the video should switch to a different line of work. “I think everyone in this corridor should reconsider their career choice,” he said. “If you don’t have the courage and the attitude to run into the fire, as a police officer, then you’re in the wrong profession.”
Weber reported from Austin, Texas and Bleiberg from Dallas.
