Former Uvalde mayor is surprised a new report defends how police responded to school shooting

The former Uvalde mayor who ordered an investigation into actions by local police during the Robb Elementary School shooting said Friday he was surprised the report defended officers and believes the acting chief on the scene failed during the 2022 massacre.

“What I’ve seen so far, it’s not quite what I was expecting,” said Don McLaughlin, who stepped down as mayor of the small Texas city last year and is now the Republican nominee for a seat in the state Legislature.

The independent report released Thursday was commissioned by the city to determine if any of the 28 Uvalde Police Department officers and three dispatchers violated department policy in their response to the shooter who killed 19 students and two teachers. Nearly 400 law enforcement agents, including Uvalde police, rushed to the school but waited more than an hour to confront the teenage gunman who was inside a fourth-grade classroom with an AR-style rifle.

The new report, which acknowledged missteps but ultimately defended the actions of local police, prompted outrage from several family members of the victims during a City Council presentation. One person in the audience screamed “Coward!” and some family members angrily walked out of the meeting.

McLaughlin, who ordered the independent probe in the weeks following the shooting, said that although he had not read the entire 180-page report he was surprised by some of its findings. He singled out the actions of former Uvalde Lt. Mariano Pargas, who was the city’s acting police chief at the time.