Plumbing 
The Thursday, March 7 report from JPPI on the Uvalde Police Department’s response to the attack on Robb Elementary brought dishonor to the city and needless pain to families whose loved ones were killed or wounded.
With city attorney Paul Tarski asking questions and Jesse Prado dutifully answering, it was clear from the beginning that the deposition-like presentation’s single purpose was to hold blameless all UPD officers who responded on May 24.
Prado said his investigation, which has required more than 20 months to compile, did not include officers who were no longer on the force, except for former Lt. Mariano Pargas who was acting chief during the shooting but resigned before he could be terminated.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of law enforcement failures described in the Texas House Committee report months after the tragedy and the Department of Justice report issued last January that identified Pargas as being among five leaders who failed the community, Prado said the acting chief had done nothing in violation of UPD policy.
The same applied to the highest ranking officers at the scene, Lt. Javier Martinez and Sgt. Eduardo Canales, as well as Detective Louis Landry and Sgt. Donald Page, all of whom were present in the hallway during the 77 minutes it took to eliminate the attacker.
Prado acknowledged an assortment of failures, including in communications, an absence of classroom keys, inadequate equipment and training but insisted that because of the memorandum of understandin between the UPD and Uvalde school district, the underlying failure belonged to school police chief Pete Arredondo and his officers.
The blame shifting is as ironic as it is sad. Former Mayor Don McLaughlin Jr. ordered the DOJ report in the days after the attack and also called for Prado’s independent investigation. All the while city officials bemoaned the Texas DPS’s insistence that the Robb fiasco rested squarely on local officers.
To think that the city has spent almost $100,000 for a former Austin Police Department detective to produce a 200-page report that effectively says Uvalde police did exactly what they were called to do, while 19 children and two teachers were systematically murdered and more than a dozen others wounded, is absurd.
Prado’s defense rests on the idea that without knowing how to breach a door (Canales was the SWAT commander and Martinez the former commander), without an adequate shield and unable to get within eight feet of the door without being seen (more science fiction) and hamstrung by the orders of Arredondo, there wasn’t much to be done.
What about the DOJ report’s finding that waiting for equipment wasted precious time? “Officers on scene during the initial response in the West Building, even with only their standard issued service weapon, had sufficient equipment to formulate a plan and attempt to make entry into classrooms 111/112, by FIRST checking the doorknob.”
What about the fact that Police Chief Danny Rodriguez, while on vacation, placed a man in charge of the department who had never received incident command, active shooter or tactical training? And yet Rodriguez, in a phone call, told Pargas to set up a command post, which he did not do. By the end of the report, virtually the entire room seethed with anger. It was palpable and understandable and verbalized by numerous families of Robb victims and survivors. Members of the city council had not been given the report prior to the 2 p.m. meeting at the Willie de Leon Civic Center.
One of them, Hector Luevano, said he was “insulted and embarrassed” by Prado’s work. “The families deserve more, the community deserves more. I don’t accept this report.” Councilman Chip King joined in saying, “I can assure you this is not what we wanted. I apologize to every one of you.”
The harm done by Thursday’s presentation – the content and way in which it was delivered – was a senseless kick in the stomach for families and the community in general. After almost two years of trying to gather up the pieces, this misstep scattered them even further.
