A police officer armed with a rifle watched the gunman in the Uvalde elementary school massacre walk toward the campus but did not fire while waiting for permission from a supervisor to shoot, according to a sweeping critique released Wednesday on the tactical response to the May tragedy.
The school district police chief who served as on-site commander during last week’s deadly shooting in Uvalde, Texas, said Wednesday that he’s talking daily with investigators, contradicting claims from state law enforcement that he has stopped cooperating.
The Justice Department said Sunday it will review the law enforcement response to the Texas school shooting, an unusual federal look back prompted by questions about the shifting and at times contradictory information from authorities that have enraged a community in shock and sorrow.
With mass shootings in Texas, New York and California fresh in Americans’ mind, the U.S. Supreme Court will soon issue its biggest gun ruling in more than a decade, one expected to make it easier to carry guns in public in some of the nation’s largest cities.
An 18-year-old gunman opened fire Tuesday at a Texas elementary school, killing at least 18 children as he went from classroom to classroom, officials said, in the latest gruesome moment for a country scarred by a string of massacres. The assailant was killed by law enforcement.