Well. This afternoon, the Texas State Police announced it would do
its own review after the Yuval the report laid out systemic failures
and detailed quote egregiously poor decision making by law enforcement
found. 376. Officers responded that day representing 20 different
agencies. Yet there was a lack of effective incident command, and
it was unclear who was in charge.
The report also outlines how school staff developed a sense of complacency
with safety protocols, leaving doors unlocked door propped open for
convenience. I'm joined now by Tony Plohetski. He's an investigative
reporter for the Austin American Statesman who has closely covered
the rob elementary shooting and its fallout since that tragic day,
Tony Welcome back to the news hour. Thank you for joining us as we
mentioned you have covered this from the beginning. So what stands
out to you from this report? What's news to you?
I think this report is filled with so many wrenching revelations,
and it really does paint the most complete picture of what happened
that horrible day. Keep in mind that over the past 7.5 weeks we have
gotten information and drips and drabs, and, unfortunately so much
of that information has proven to be false, and authorities have
found themselves having to amend statements or correct them or, in
some cases, throw them out altogether.
So the fact that we now have a written report that is based on the
testimony of dozens of people, including many law enforcement officials
there, it really does paint the scene. Tragically, though, the more
information we learned from going through this report, it really
is renewing so much pain and so much loss for the families of your
body. And it really does show just such an epic failure of law enforcement
and responding to every
Thing that was going on that day. You know, Tony, when you think
back to those early days, I remember so much focus, especially from
state officials pointing the blame at you've Aldi police specifically
the school district police chief Pete Arredondo, whose name We've
heard so much now, But this report shows there were multiple failures
by multiple officers from multiple agencies. We need to stress officials
have known about this for weeks. So why are we just learning about
that part of it now?
Well, certainly there has been a narrative that frankly has been
nurtured, which is that the responding officers were from a small
town. They were out of their depth. They truly were the ones who
did not respond appropriately. But to your point, we now know from
this report that they were law enforcement agencies there at the
state level as well as the federal level, including the Texas Department
of Public Safety. The Border Patrol was also on the
Around there as well. And as a matter of fact, this report makes
it clear that the majority of the police officers who responded to
the school were in fact, state and federal law enforcement. So the
idea that this was just a small town problem really does get thrown
out when you consider the number of officers who were there and and
from the all of the different agencies, the multitude of agencies
and I think today as we continue to make sense of all
Of this. It only serves to deepen the question about law enforcement
training and law enforcement response for active shooter situations
like this one, Tony, I'm sure this is small comfort for the families
who had to bury Children bury loved ones.
Many of them forever traumatized even if they survived. We know many
of them are raising concerns about a potential cover up as well.
How has this report fed any of those narratives? And how are they
responding to these latest revelations?
Certainly among those 21 families and the people of your body. There's
no real uniform response from this information. But I can certainly
tell you that many people within that town are very, very angry.
They are heartbroken. This has renewed their grief but also at the
same time.
I think many of them are also, um, taking some solace. If that is
even possible, and knowing the facts as difficult as they are to
comprehend, and make sense of many of them are taking some comfort
in knowing what happened that terrible day and and not having just
all of these unanswered questions out there, Tony briefly, if you
can. What about accountability? I mean, we know the school district
police chief has been put on leave. The mayor's also put the acting
police chief for the city.
The on leave.
Do we know what happens next?
That's a question that we have been in fact asking today. We know
that the Texas Department of Public Safety has also created an internal
committee to look at the response of this officers. But we are actually
in the process of pulling all of the agencies now to see if they
will similarly do an internal review of officers. Action that is
Tony Plohetski of the Austin American Statesman who has been following
that massacre at Rob Elementary School. And you've all D Texas. Tony.
Thank you for joining us.