The Uvalde school shooting and the failed police response

Minutes before the attack, the gunman wrote online that he had shot his grandmother and was going to shoot up a school.^[6] Two days after the shooting Joe Garcia, the husband of slain teacher Irma Garcia, died, in what his family described as grief.^[7] Within days the Justice Department said it would review the police response, and attention turned to the officers who waited in the hallway.^[8][9] The commander on the scene had not been told of the 911 calls students made from inside the classrooms,^[10] and the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety called the response an "abject failure."^[11]

Arredondo, who said he did not consider himself the commander that day,^[12] was put on leave, resigned from the city council and was fired by the school board in August 2022.^[13][14][15] That October the district suspended its entire police force.^[16] A Justice Department report in January 2024 found that officers had many chances to stop the gunman sooner,^[17] while a review ordered by city leaders that March put no blame on local police, angering parents.^[18]

The families turned to the courts. Nineteen of them reached a $2 million settlement with the city in May 2024 and said they were suing the school district,^[19] and on the second anniversary they sued Meta, the maker of the video game Call of Duty and a gun maker.^[20]