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DOJ Probe: Police Response At Uvalde School Shooting Was "A Failure". Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired January 18, 2024 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This -- it's hard enough waking up every day and continuing to walk out on these streets and walk to an HEB or drive to an HEB and see a cop that you know was standing there while our babies were murdered and bleeding out. It's hard enough that. But this community doesn't care. And I hope that this, I hope this makes you all. I also hope that this lights a fire up under the district attorney's ass because we know that she has not done a damn thing, and we refuse to accept that. Do your job.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's try to go one at a time and just introduce yourselves so they know who they're talking to. Where do we want to start?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Shimon, yes. So just -- do you --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) who you are from?

PROKUPECZ: Shimon Prokupecz, CNN. Just -- do you guys feel that the report went far enough in naming people and holding people accountability? Because as we know, DPS, has the largest number of law enforcement officials outside of the CVP. And there's a lot of video and a lot of information about their actions that day. But it doesn't seem that this report really touches on their actions I think so it seems to focus mostly on local officers (inaudible). Are you concerned about that? I need some reaction to that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't understand why they are allowed privacy. My child, their children, they are named in this report because they are dead. Everybody should have been named.

PROKUPECZ: Do you feel, Kim, if I can follow up that somehow maybe DPS is off the hook on this like when you look at this report, or any -- do any of you want to just?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, it's kind of hard to answer the question because we've only been given an hour and a half to kind of just look through the report. So we don't even know if they are mentioned in there or not. We would hope that they are because they were there. So we hope that they would be accountable for their actions as well.

MONICA MADDEN, KXAN NEWS CAPITOL CORRESPONDENT: Johnny, following up on that, Monica Madden, KXAN and Nexstar. I know that you said you're still sifting through the report and everything, but were you hoping that the attorney general would have addressed a lot of more of the aftermath, the delays in the DA's investigation, DPS's investigation into its offices actions and accountability? Were you hoping that he would address more of that publicly?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, of course we would have. We're grateful that we got what we have right now because it's probably the most updated information that any of us have gotten since May 24th. So and we're very appreciative of what he's done right now. But, yes, we would have liked to have more information about it.

JIM BRYAN (ph), BBC RADIO: Jim Bryan (ph) with BBC Radio. Do you think 00 did you learn anything new from what you've seen in this report? Is there anything that you didn't know before?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We knew as families, you know, just kind of talking amongst each other. We knew the failures that had happened. We just kind of -- it makes more clarity now because it's written and now it's set in stone and what we thought is true, so.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did learn something. He did -- I didn't realize that the scene was compromised. The scene was compromised, that there was people that shouldn't have been there that were entering the classroom. That's mentioned in the report.

BRYAN (ph): And did -- was that -- how did you be able to learn that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to continue reading more when we're done here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's do a couple more and then we could go --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two quick ones, News4 WOAI KBB in San Antonio. In all of your guys' mind, is there any question left that the DA should have all that she needs, all that she is required to have for her investigation to be able to pursue criminal charges now at this point?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, yes. What else does she need? Yes. I mean, this is probably the most extensive piece that we have about all of the failures that happened that day. What else does she possibly need to prosecute or to remove these people from their positions of power when they can't even do their jobs?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) KBB WOAI. How safe are the children of Uvalde right now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the point of this is that none of us are safe. That's what, you know, Josh just mentioned. None of us are safe because these weapons are on the streets.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) San Antonio, I've talked to so many of you over the past year. A lot of you recently have expressed concern about the two year mark, meaning that the Statute of Limitations for misdemeanors will expire. Are you hoping that this will potentially fast track the upcoming DA investigation, the ongoing DA investigation? JOSHUA KOSKOFF, LAWYER FOR RELATIVES OF UVALDE VICTIMS: Well, the DA -- even the DA can't get fully in our way of an -- fully in our way of an investigation. But it ought to be, to your point, it ought to be said that the DA, with the help of the AG here in Texas, is fighting the disclosure of a lot of these important information. So the DA is effectively, you know, the DA has a job to do. We understand that.

[13:05:16]

But she's locked up this information that these families deserve to have access to, to evaluate their legal rights. So there's no reason why she can't do her job so that we can do ours and so that these families get the information they deserve to make the decisions they have to make.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) the timeline update --

KOSKOFF: I mean I think at this point, it's not a good bet to bet on the DA's timelines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

KOSKOFF: Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Quick question, you know, you talk about how you're presenting the family, you're trying to conduct that investigation. What's the purpose of it? Is it potentially to sue the local law enforcement agencies, like what's the -- what are you hoping?

KOSKOFF: Well, the -- it's similar. I mean the, of course, the DOJ looks at the criminal and the DA is looking at criminal allegations. But the other facet to these incidents is how can we -- what went wrong and how can we hold those people accountable and the traditional means, other means that we do so, which is by bringing legal action against them so that there's another incentive to clean up their act, right?

And so we're, you know, so we have to look at all the angles here. What contributed to this? And it should be noted that, you know, the, you know, when many of us were growing up, maybe, am I the oldest person here? But when many of us were growing up, we didn't have these routine mass shootings with AR-15s. But guess what? AR-15s were available. So something's changed.

And so one of the big things that we've seen in Sandy Hook and Parkland and other cases is that what's changed is the way these weapons are pushed on youth. And this is a crystal -- a tragic and unnecessary example of the repercussions of that. When we were growing up, nobody knew what an AR-15 was. And here, every kid of a certain age, every -- especially boys know what they are because they're being courted and they're being courted with other actors, like social media and et cetera. So these gun companies are really pushing these products on kids for these types of missions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) from the Texas Tribune. Are you suggesting that you're going to pursue charges against gun manufacturers?

KOSKOFF: Well, I don't bring charges, you know, but fair enough. But we're -- the legal issues that we're under consideration now, I can't really speak about beyond just the big picture type of things that you have to look at in an incident like this. I mean, there's a lot of factors that go into something like this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the families now, what are the next steps. We now have one of these investigations out, there's numerous. The DPS is still doing their investigation. We obviously have the DA who is still doing theirs. What is next for all of you as you continue to try and move forward? And one, put the day behind you, but two, create change.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we're going to continue fighting. We're going to continue fighting that some type of change is made in honor of our kids. We have nothing left but to fight for them. We are their voices now. So you're going to continue.

PROKUPECZ: Can I just get a reaction from someone, the attorney general, having him stand there very significant moment when he says that lives had officers follow protocol, procedures like their (ph) potential being saved. How can was that -- how was that for you to hear him say that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You mean how do you want us to react?

PROKUPECZ: No, but -- what -- because so many people have not wanted to say that here in the law enforcement officials.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean it was (inaudible) but I mean it was pretty hard, you know, to hear that when he sits there and says that, you know, lives could have been saved. I mean I --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just get a little closer to the mic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like I just couldn't believe it, you know, for these officers to sit there and just not do anything, you know, and still be out here, you know, on the streets like nothing happened, you know, and my daughter's gone. It's -- it was hard. It was hard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we're going to leave it there, folks, and let the families.

VINCENT SALAZAR, GRANDFATHER OF LAYLA SALAZAR: Excuse me, excuse me. I got something to say. I'm the grandfather of Layla Salazar and this mass shooting here, why is it that our officers got rewarded instead of being punished and got raises instead of getting demotions? That's what I don't understand. The DPS major there that's sitting behind Abbot got a $40,000 raise. The Texas Ranger that had been suspended a year ago, fired, he's still getting paid over $100,000. Why are we paying these officers? And then you want us to trust them with our families when they're getting paid to do nothing? We lost 19 children and two parents and another husband that died right after.

[13:10:32] So really, I don't see where we should be rewarding our officers, because I was at the courthouse when they had the commissioner's court, and they asked me if they should have a raise, and I told them straight out, no, they don't deserve a raise. If you cannot serve and protect the people, these were children, all they wanted to do was play. There's no reason this should have happened. They should have did. They ignored the training that was supposed to be since Columbine, and they ignored it.

There's too many failures in this situation that happened here in Uvalde and for them to be getting rewarded for, I do not agree. My name is Vincent Salazar. I'm the grandfather of Layla Salazar.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We have just been listening there to some of the families of the victims of the 2002 Uvalde school shooting, many of them reliving the horrors of that day as they are scouring through this very long hundreds and hundreds of pages. A new Justice Department report about the botched police response to that massacre coming to its conclusion, concluding, quote, the response to the May 24th, 2022 mass casualty incident at Robb Elementary School was a failure.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The extensive probe comes nearly 20 months after 19 students and two teachers were killed, and the details how law enforcement stood by for well over an hour outside the classrooms where carnage was taking place. Last hour, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, laid out some of the gut wrenching details. Let's listen to a portion of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Many officers reported that they did not know who, if anyone, was in charge, what they should do, or the status of the incident. Some officers were confused about why there was no attempt to confront the active shooter and rescue the children. Some officers believe the subject had already been killed or that law enforcement was in the room with a shooter, 75 minutes after the first officers arrived on scene, officers finally entered room 111.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's go now live to CNN's Shimon Prokupecz, who's in Uvalde for us. Shimon has been covering this story seemingly just within hours of it taking place. And, Shimon, you've been speaking closely to family members of victims. We heard from them just now, and something that one of the parents said stood out to me, this is Brett Cross. He's the father of a young boy that was killed at Robb Elementary School. And he said about the law enforcement officers that he believes have not been held accountable for the failures at Uvalde.

He said, quote, they don't want to believe the people that are supposed to protect us failed our children. What did you make of all that you just heard, Shimon?

PROKUPECZ: You know, I mean, he's absolutely right. You know, I've spent a lot of time here. I've talked to these families. I've talked to other folks in the community. And there is that feeling here. There are some in the community who feel that the law enforcement did the best they could that day. And, you know, there are some who feel they did nothing wrong.

And so these families feel so hurt by the disrespect that they have gotten from this community countless times. And so today, to hear the attorney general solidify, to stand there with them in how they feel about the way in which they've been treated, that's the thing, right? It's horrible. And it's hard enough to deal with the kids, their loved ones, their babies being murdered inside this classroom.

But it's also what happened now for over a year from the community, from the law enforcement officials, from investigators, from the district attorney, and it just continues and continues. And the Department of Justice justified that feeling for them, corroborated how they are feeling. And it's a very significant moment for them to have the attorney general stand there and say, law enforcement failed you. They should have done better.

[13:15:15]

The leading law enforcement official of this country to stand before these families, they were in that press conference. Some of them were crying as he was speaking. Attorney general getting emotional at one point and saying that the loved ones deserved better. And that's the thing. That's what this does for them. And it's a remarkable moment for this community and for the people who have suffered as a result of what happened here.

And of course, the attorney general listing all the failures. And one of the significant things he said was that lives could have potentially been saved had police acted sooner. And I know just from my reporting and footage I have seen and reports I have seen and interviews I have listened to, there were people, kids, teachers that were still breathing. They were seriously injured, but they were alive during those 77 minutes while the kids were inside that classroom.

And had law enforcement gone in there sooner, perhaps those lives would have been saved. And that's what the attorney general here today said. And I think that's so significant. Among the failures, obviously, just the top to bottom, and everything that they did was a failure, was not right. And he essentially today said to this community, you're right. You should have been treated better. And I think that's very significant.

KEILAR: Yes. They're watching in this community divided, Shimon, lives going on around them. And their lives will never be the same. And it's cold comfort, I think, to have accountability. What they want is their children, they want their loved ones. But they're looking for that accountability. They think it's incredibly important. And specifically, you heard parents there talking about the DA. I mean, what are they -- what do they want? What are they expecting? Where does that stand?

PROKUPECZ: They want transparency from her. She has not held one press conference. She has avoided the media. And I've had to chase her down in the very beginning stages. She refuses to answer any questions. She does have some meetings with them, but she's very evasive. She's been claiming that she's waiting to empanel a grand jury. There are some questions about that.

So she's not very forthcoming on what she's planning to do. Many of them feel that she's not going to bring any criminal charges against any of the officers. They want charges. They want to see someone inside a courtroom facing charges for their failures. And I don't know if today gets them that, and it probably won't. It would be a very difficult task. And certainly the DA has not given any indication that she's planning on doing that.

It's been stalled essentially, and everyone is trying to figure out, well, what is she waiting for? We're almost two years into this. And I just want to make one other very important point here about why we're even here today and why the Department of Justice is here today, because honestly, it's the mayor who, the former Mayor Don McLaughlin, and if it wasn't for him, the Department of Justice would never have been able to do this investigation.

They would never be here telling the families what happened here. It was a very crucial moment because in the beginning stages of this, when the mayor realized that there perhaps could have been some kind of a cover up here, he quickly called the Department of Justice and said, I need help. I'm going to allow you into this investigation. No state official would have allowed him in.

No other city official would have allowed the Department of Justice in. But he on his own against his party, the Republicans here against what the governor wanted him to do, what the Department of Public Safety wanted him to do. They didn't want DOJ in this. He said, no, I'm going to do this. I'm going to bring the DOJ here. And here we are today. And it is because of that the families are able to get the answers that they've been wanting. Because quite frankly, Brianna, I don't think we'd still be playing a guessing game here and the families would still be wondering, well, what really happened here.

Because to this date, when you think of -- to this day, not one state official, not one state official has briefed these families. Not one city official has sat them down and said, let me tell you everything that has happened here. And it seems like today, at least for now, they have some answers. And as they said, they're going to keep fighting because there is just so much more. And they got to figure out how to bring this community together.

To be here, you see it, you feel it. Even the families of the victims, there's some separation now. They aren't as united as they once were. And it's really hard to see. And I know for them it's certainly very painful. And maybe this today brings everybody together as we focus on the victims and the families, because I think that is the most important thing because what happened here was just so horrific and so bad that and shouldn't have happened. And that's why today is really just, I think it needs to be about those victims.

[13:20:32] SANCHEZ: And Brett Cross, the father that we heard from previously, brought that up in his remarks, Shimon saying that now that this report has a DOJ stamp on it, maybe they'll take us seriously, people in the community, instead of telling us to move on. Shimon, please stand by. We want to go to CNN's Josh Campbell now to get some analysis on what is in the report.

Josh, there's obviously an extensive list of failures outlined, some 273 recommendations. Notably, the attorney general spoke at length about a lack of training by some of the law enforcement officials that were at the scene. But how much of this, from your perspective, amounts to lack of training versus not just doing what has been mandated to be done since Columbine when officers arrive at a scene like that?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is striking on so many levels. And I think you see a bit of both there. There's the training aspect which is outlined in this report, and as the attorney general mentioned. But also, as I'll mention in a second, just the nature of being a police officer and what that means when you are in an emergent situation tasked with saving lives. First, on the training, the attorney general noted in the report, saying that what we've learned in the aftermath is that the vast majority officers who had arrived on the scene that day had received no training working with other agencies.

And you have to think, you know, in this era of mass shootings, it's not just one department that's responding. It could be multiple agencies. And the idea that they haven't, you know, practiced some type of interagency training in advance is certainly unconscionable. And then the attorney general also said that when it comes to active shooter training, some of the officers there on the scene lacked any training at all.

And so again, you have to think about what does that mean for leadership? I could tell you I grew up not far from Uvalde. I mentioned that because I know this area. It is not a place where police officers on a daily basis are dealing with endless emergent situations. The reason why that is important is because if you are a police leader, you take that time when you're not responding to shootings and, you know, urgent situations to train, to prepare.

And so I still ask myself, you know, what was this police chief doing spending that time in order to prepare those officers for the day that tragedy might strike in his jurisdiction? The second part I'll mention, the actual nature of the profession. You know, this is a colossal failure. I've talked to law enforcement sources from coast to coast who say they are stupefied. They are appalled by what they see here.

And just to put this into context, you know, I can remember going through tactical training in the FBI and the vivid words of a senior SWAT instructor who said, look, when you are going through a door to try to save lives, the first person through that door, the second person through that door, they may not make it home that night. That's the nature of the job. We'll take care of your family. But the third, the fourth, the fifth officer that goes through the door may be able to stop that threat.

And the final point I'll make is that, you know, in the FBI academy, I know this happens in law enforcement academies across the country. Day one of training, you don't get instruction in firearms or law or tactics. In the FBI and in other training facilities, what they did is they brought us all into a room, all of the new recruits, in a dark room. We watched continual videos of law enforcement officers being shot in the line of duty. And after that gruesome display was over, the instructor stood in front of the room and said, look, this is a profession where you may die serving others.

And if this is not for you, there is no shame in saying right now, this is not a job I can do. But there will be shame down the road if you make that decision when lives are on the line, when you're responsible for saving others. And it appears in looking at this incident in Uvalde, this colossal failure by officers there, that at least, you know, some of the officers that were in that hallway when it mattered most, they made the decision to put their own safety above the safety of a classroom filled with innocent, helpless children.

KEILAR: You put it in such good context, Josh. Thank you so much for doing that. Let's talk about the legal angle of this now. We have Elliot Williams with us. What are you expecting from this? There are some people we heard unnamed, sort of the lower rank and file. You heard the family saying they wish that everyone had been named. And then you heard about the DA, who really has just kind of been intransigent. So what are you expecting?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. All of the above. Now, first, just to back up how this came to be from the Justice Department, this office that put out this report, the community oriented policing services office, frankly, is one that I've worked with quite a lot. They are people that go and collaboratively work with police departments. If you notice here, it was the mayor who first invited the Justice Department in. So it's not the folks in Washington coming in and wagging their fingers. It's, let's figure out how to make everything better. And it's a great office and great sharp folks than now.

[13:25:16]

KEILAR: Because they didn't think they would get that from the state.

WILLIAMS: Yes. And that happens sometimes. It really does. Now, in terms of who's liable and who's not, I think there's a few different ways this can go. First off, civil liability lawsuits against either institutions themselves, the police department, the city, the school board, whatever else, they could all be sued as institutions. Then individuals could be sued, you know, in their personal capacity, individual officers, first responders for being negligent on the job, right?

Then put that aside. Criminal liability is always a possibility. If somebody was so negligent that their actions maybe constituted a crime, and that could happen as well. And then the big one, and this is the politically fraught one, lawsuits potentially against firearms manufacturers. These come up with mixed success, but sometimes firearms manufacturers are sued for negligence in the way they market and create their products.

Now, again, that's a whole can of worms, but many people have tried to do that before. But these families, there's already a $27 billion civil lawsuit filed against some entities, so we'll see how those all shake.

SANCHEZ: When it comes to that kind of finding of liability against individual law enforcement officers or perhaps even sheriff or other members of law enforcement in their response. How strong is this 575- page report as a piece of evidence in a legal filing?

WILLIAMS: So itself wouldn't be evidence, but everything in the report is itself backed up somewhere else. I think you'd be hard pressed to bring this 500-page document into court and say, admit this, because a lot of it's going to be hearsay, which often is not admitted into court. Now, everything in there is substantiated by interviews and conversations and documents, literally the receipts. And it's strong, it's damning, and it's really bad for the city of Uvalde.

So, big picture, I would assume, what you'd see is a lot of settlements rather than going to trial and facing potentially billions of dollars, maybe far lower numbers and so on. And then finally, one more, there's so many legal questions. There's a potential civil rights investigation here, too, that the Uvalde Police Department so was negligent that they violated the civil rights of the people to attend school, which is a right you have, and you can be sued by the Justice Department for that as well.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

KEILAR: Elliot, thank you so much for that.

And up next, we will speak to a parent whose son survived on that tragic day in Uvalde. We'll see how they're reacting to this scathing report from the Justice Department. As we go to break, these are the murals that you heard DOJ officials referring to from Uvalde, Texas, of the victims from this tragedy. We'll be right back.

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