New Uvalde report details ‘systematic failures’ in police response

UVALDE, TEXAS (NBC) – For the first time, the public is getting a chilling picture of early moments inside Robb Elementary from police body camera footage: early chaos and glimpses of calls to action.

That plea coming minutes after the massacre began. But that first interaction, the only time the officers are seen in the video physically confronting the gunman, for well over an hour.

At one point, Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo seen trying to reason with the shooter: "Sir, can you let me know if there’s any kids in there or anything? This could be peaceful.”

Arredondo, who is on administrative leave, maintains he was not the incident commander that day.

This new footage released as the most comprehensive report to date conducted by the Texas House finds law enforcement, ultimately reaching 376 officers, didn’t honor their most basic responsibility.

The authors writing, "They failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.”

Family members said they were hoping for more than a verbal dressing down.

“What they’re saying, we already knew it!” said Mr. Mata, the great grandfather of Lexi Rubio. “They were cowards!

Ultimately some action was taken right away. The city’s mayor announcing right before this meeting the acting chief of Uvalde’s police department, Mariano Pargas, now on administrative leave.

The report citing “No evidence that any officer who did learn about 911 phone calls coming from inside rooms 111 and 112, including Pargas, acted on it to advocate shifting to an active shooter-style response."

There are also windows into heroism.

Justin Mendoza: “Let’s get these kids out of here! Let’s get these kids out of here!”

Students apparently being pulled out of the building. And this heartbreaking hallway exchange with officer Rueben Ruiz right after the initial gunfire.

“That’s my wife’s classroom!" Ruiz said.

Learning his wife Eva Mireles, a teacher, was shot and dying before his weapon was taken and he was removed for trying to engage the shooter, according to Texas DPS.

The only teacher who did survive in those two rooms, Arnulfo Reyes, shot twice, believes Mireles could have been saved.

If the law enforcement officers on scene would have allowed him to continue pursuing the gunman, “She would have probably lived,” Reyes said. “And I think she’s one of the ones that they have said that also bled to death.”

All 11 of the students in his class didn’t survive.