AUSTIN, Texas — Now that we have seen the video of the police response in the hallways of Robb Elementary School, we wanted to get law enforcement insight on the response by officers in Uvalde that day.
For insight, we spoke with Curtis Lavarello, who is the executive director with the School Safety Advocacy Council. He worked 25 years in law enforcement, with many years in school safety in Florida. He also was the executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers for six years. He said in all his years in school safety, the police response in this video is one of the most disturbing things he has seen.
“This response was pathetic,” said Lavarello. “You don't have kids in there for that long when you know they're being killed, shot and hurt. And it's just, there's no rhyme or reason. And watching it makes it even more disturbing from my aspect through law enforcement eyes.”
He said officers are trained to get to the shooter as quickly as possible.
“And making sure we have the right equipment to go in – we're not asking any one officer to try to be a hero and walk into a suicide situation,” said Lavarello. “But, you know, from the videos and what's coming out, they had the equipment, they had the firepower.”
Not only does Lavarello believe the officers inside Robb Elementary School had firepower, he believes they had options they did not utilize.
“There was a lot of focus on breaching the door into the classroom,” said Lavarello. “Well, these classrooms had windows as well. I don't care if you have to drive a police vehicle through that door, you get in there and you save lives. It's just, again, it's just incredibly difficult to watch. And it's probably, you know, I've gone as far as calling it disgusting.”
In the beginning of the video, we see a few officers go down the hall to the classroom, but run back after gunfire. They then stay at the end of the hallway for the duration of the video, until they end up breaching the door of the classroom over an hour later.
“They had ballistic shields as well, you know, which would have provided a great portion of protection. But you got to engage the shooter, if for nothing else, he's engaging you and not engaging kids and killing kids,” he said.
He also said by running away from the gunfire down the hallway, they put themselves at risk by turning their backs to the shooter. He said it is also not typical to retreat like they did. It is also not typical to wait for extra law enforcement to arrive.
“What you're looking at here is exactly what came out of Columbine, is no longer, 'Are we going to sit back and wait for SWAT teams or response teams?'” said Lavarello speaking on how officers did not follow the updated guidance on school shootings.
Lavarello said it is hard to watch officers not taking action.
“We go into gun battles where we know there is one person that may hurt one person,” he said. “This is a gun battle, you know, where there's a one person that is hurting 20-some-odd people and taking their lives. And so, there's just no way to make sense of the response here, and I can certainly understand the frustration of these parents and the community.”
He said even if there was inappropriate or wrong direction by law enforcement leaders in Uvalde, the response is still not acceptable.
“I know there's some question as to who the incident commander was, but you don't need an incident commander to know what to do,” he said. “And know, it is right here, it's very, very simple. You've got to eliminate this shooter. Time is not on your side. You've got to go in there and you've got to eliminate that threat immediately, and that's the only response.”
And it’s a response that at Robb Elementary on May 24 did not happen.
“I’m saddened as a law enforcement officer for 25 years, but I'm probably more sad as a parent of two children,” Lavarello said. “I can't imagine being a parent sitting outside and being told, 'We're waiting to go in.' And now these parents, watching this video, it's heart-wrenching.”
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