Uvalde parents lash out after new report clears city police of missteps during Texas school attack

Reggie Daniels pays his respects a memorial at Robb Elementary School, June 9, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas, created to honor the victims killed in the school shooting. Nearly two years after the deadly school shooting in Uvalde that left 19 children and two teachers dead, the city council will discuss Thursday, March 7, 2024, the results of an independent investigation it requested into the response by local police officers. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

An investigation Uvalde city leaders ordered into the Robb Elementary School shooting put no blame on local police officers and defended their actions Thursday despite acknowledging a series of rippling failures during the fumbled response to the 2022 classroom attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

Several family members of victims walked out in anger midway through a presentation that portrayed Uvalde Police Department officers as acting swiftly and appropriately, in contrast to scathing and sweeping state and federal past reports that faulted police at every level.

The investigator who presented the report blamed families who rushed to the school that day for compromising the police response, prompting an eruption of anger from several families and some stormed out. Law enforcement took more than an hour to get inside the classroom and kill the gunman, even as children inside the classrooms called 911, begging police to rescue them.