LIVE: Uvalde report finds 'systemic failures and egregiously poor decision making'

UVALDE, Texas (KXAN) — Nearly eight weeks after 19 children and two teachers were murdered at Robb Elementary School, the families of the victims privately viewed the preliminary report, and video of the law enforcement response, got to privately see the preliminary report and view video of the law enforcement response before both were released to the public at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

The 82-page report, released by the Texas House committee tasked with investigating the May 24 mass shooting, blamed "systemic failures and egregiously poor decision making." The report gives, for the first time, a more complete understanding of what happened -- and what went wrong -- following conflicting and often changing accounts from law enforcement and government officials.

One of the report's key findings is the shooter "fired most of his shots and likely murdered most of his innocent victims before any responder set foot in the building." Of the approximately 142 rounds fired, more than 100 of those rounds came before any officer entered, the report found. The school's locked door policies were circumvented, ignored and Room 111 had a "faulty lock," which was warned about but never fixed, the report notes. The "regrettable culture of noncompliance" contributed to the shooter's ability to walk into school, and the classroom, without any resistance.

"With hindsight we can say that Robb Elementary did not adequately prepare for the risk of an armed intruder on campus," the report found.

'Systemic failures'

Responding law enforcement ignored more than two decades of lessons learned since Columbine High School in 1999, "failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety," the report found.

"[A]ll officers must now acknowledge that stopping the killing of innocent lives is the highest priority in active shooter response," the report said, "and all officers must be willing to risk their lives without hesitation."

"The report confirms what we've all suspected, the response was a Colossal failure of leadership," said former Austin Police Department Chief Art Acevedo, who is now a law enforcement consultant and reviewed the report's findings.

The report does not know whether lives could have been saved if officers acted quicker but called the delayed response "unacceptably long" and a violation of current active shooter training. Adding to the chaos and confusion, Uvalde CISD's active shooter plan called for the school's police chief, Pete Arredondo, to "assume command and control of the response" -- but that never happened.

"The chief of police was one of the first responders on the scene. But as events unfolded, he failed to perform or to transfer to another person the role of incident commander," the report said. "This was an essential duty he had assigned to himself in the plan mentioned above, yet it was not effectively performed by anyone."

This "void of leadership could have contributed to the loss of life as injured victims waited over an hour for help," the report continues, "and the attacker continued to sporadically fire his weapon."

A command post and the "deliberate assignment of tasks and the flow of information" could have "transformed chaos into order," the report noted. Law enforcement making critical decisions inside the building did not receive information that students and teachers had survived the initial burst of gunfire, were trapped in Rooms 111 and 112, and called 911 for help -- which a former area 911 operator believed to be the case days after the shooting. An "effective" incident commander would have realized radios "were mostly ineffective" and other lines of communication were needed to relay the contents of the 911 calls.

Because urgent medical attention was needed, law enforcement should have addressed this as an active shooter situation instead of a barricaded subject.

"Recognition of an active shooter scenario also should have prompted responders to prioritize the rescue of innocent victims over the precious time wasted in a search for door keys and shields to enhance the safety of law enforcement responders," the report said, noting Uvalde CISD and its police department "failed to implement their active shooter plan."

State leaders and reporters have been calling for months for the release of the hallway video. Some criticized an Austin newspaper and TV station earlier this week for publishing a 77-minute leaked video that showed the hallway, outside surveillance footage, and body camera footage. On Tuesday, Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody, vice chair of the House committee investigating the shooting, said “the report we’re working on provides context. A piecemeal release of information continues to tell part of a story that people deserve the complete truth about.”

Unlike the video previously leaked, the hallway video released Sunday starts after the shooter enters the classroom and does not contain any audio at all. While the leaked video edited out the sounds of children screaming but kept the sounds of gun shots being fired, the video released to the public Sunday does not include any audio. It shows the shooter entering the hallway around 11:33 a.m. on May 24 carrying a black rifle. A child can be seen walking down another part of the hall and peeking around a corner before running away after hearing gunshots.

The video released Sunday does now show the shooter firing rounds into the classroom and stepping inside.

The first officer appears on camera at 11:35 a.m. Two start running toward the classroom door with the shooter and two more join them outside it. A minute later gunshots are fired and officers are seen retreating. At 12:21 p.m. officers move back down the hall and just outside the classroom door. At 12:50 p.m. more gunshots are fired.

The 18-year-old shooter was killed at the scene.

The Texas House investigative committee was created in early June. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan appointed Moody, (D-El Paso), Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock), as well as Eva Guzman, a former Texas Supreme Court justice who recently ran against Attorney General Ken Paxton, to the committee.

KXAN will be updating this article with key findings from the report. Check back for further updates.