'How not to handle a school shooter': Former FBI official slams Uvalde police response
Former FBI Assistant Director Frank Figliuzzi explained on Thursday why he thinks the law enforcement response to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas will be studied as an example of what not to do.
There were two wide gaps in time during the police response and multiple media outlets have reported shocking details of what law enforcement was doing during the time.
"Javier Cazares, whose fourth-grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting, arriving while police were still gathered outside the building," the Associated Press reported. "Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders. 'Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,' he said. 'More could have been done.'”
A similar report came from The New York Times, which interviewed Derek Sotelo, 26, who rushed to the school after hearing the gunfire from his nearby tire shop.
He told the newspaper “We were wondering, ‘What the heck is going on? Are they going in?’ The dads were saying, ‘Give me the vest, I’ll go in there!’”
But the most shocking account was reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Angeli Rose Gomez told the newspaper "police were doing nothing" when she arrived.
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"Ms. Gomez, a farm supervisor, said that she was one of numerous parents waiting outside the school who began encouraging—first politely, and then with more urgency—police and other law enforcement to enter the school sooner. After a few minutes, she said, U.S. Marshals put her in handcuffs, telling her she was being arrested for actively intervening in an active investigation," the newspaper reported. "Ms. Gomez convinced local Uvalde police officers whom she knew to persuade the marshals to set her free. Around her, the scene was frantic. She said she saw a father tackled and thrown to the ground by police and a third pepper-sprayed. Once freed from her cuffs, Ms. Gomez made her distance from the crowd, jumped the school fence, and ran inside to grab her two children. She sprinted out of the school with them."
MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace interviewed Figliuzzi about the developments.
"Let's be clear," he said. "You do, of course, want to establish a controlled perimeter when some violence is ongoing."
"There are so many questions here about why so long for any tactical response, why do we rely on a federal response that just because it happens to be a border or near the border town, we happen to have, thank goodness, Border Patrol there," he said. "Great."
"Where are the sheriffs? Where is the S.W.A.T. team? Where is the breaching material and tools? Why don't we have a master key in the hands of the police department? This is going to be studied, unfortunately, as how not to handle a school shooter because it goes against the training that certainly I've had and certainly what I know police departments train to do," he said.
Watch the clip below or at this link.
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