5 Takeaways From the Federal Report on the Uvalde Massacre

More than a year and a half after the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, the Justice Department on Thursday published a painstaking and independent examination of the law enforcement response, finding broad and “unimaginable” failures that delayed medical care to the victims.

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed, and at least 17 others were wounded. Officers took 77 minutes to confront and kill the gunman, who was contained with his victims inside a pair of connected classrooms at Robb Elementary School. “People would have survived,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said, had there been a swifter response.

The 600-page report describes, in often-minute detail, the breakdown in leadership, training, coordination and communication among the large number of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies that arrived at the scene.

It highlighted the misinformation and poor handling of the immediate aftermath of the school shooting on May 24, 2022, that deepened the pain of the victims’ families who, in some cases, were told their children were alive, only to later find out they had been killed.

Here are five takeaways from the report:

Federal investigators faulted the school police chief for delays.

Within days of the shooting, blame fell on Chief Pete Arredondo, who led the small police force in charge of the Uvalde public schools. The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steve McCraw, accused Mr. Arredondo of being primarily responsible for the delay in confronting the gunman. Mr. Arredondo, who was fired, has defended himself, saying he never believed he was in charge.