Justice Department Blasts Police for “Cascading Failures” in Response to Uvalde

Police officials “demonstrated no urgency” in their response to the deadly elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and the response that did happen was plagued by “cascading failures,” according to a scathing Department of Justice report released Thursday.

A gunman opened fire in the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24, 2022. He barricaded himself in a classroom and shot dead 19 students and two teachers, wounding 17 others, before police finally stopped him.

It took officers more than 70 minutes before they engaged the shooter, and law enforcement officials at all levels have come under intense scrutiny over the response to the attack.

“The victims and survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School deserved better,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022—and the response by officials in the hours and days after—was a failure.”

The nearly 600-page report found that even though officers arrived just minutes after the shooter, they did not engage him because he shot at them from inside the classroom. There were 376 officers at the scene before a Border Patrol tactical team finally breached the classroom.

“An active shooter with access to victims should never be considered and treated as a barricaded subject,” the report said.

Police failed to set up a centralized command post, which caused confusion among officers and first responders, the report found. There were issues with technology resources and training protocols. There were also multiple communication issues, including some caused by then–school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo.

Arredondo discarded his radios when he arrived at the school because he thought they were unnecessary. He then told officers by phone not to enter the classroom with the shooter until the other classrooms had been emptied of students and staff. One sheriff’s deputy tried to breach the classroom when he realized his 10-year-old daughter was inside. Other officers restrained him, as per Arredondo’s orders.

The report also included quotes from a 27-minute-long 911 call that children made from inside the classroom. They included multiple cries of “Help!” and one child saying, “I don’t want to die. My teacher is dead.”

At least five officers, including Arredondo, lost their jobs over the shooting response. The Uvalde community is still reeling over the shooting years later, and families of the victims are unsure how the Justice Department report helps.

Velma Lisa Duran, whose sister Irma Garcia was one of the teachers killed, told the AP she was grateful for the agency’s work. But “a report doesn’t matter when there are no consequences for actions that are so vile and murderous and evil.”

“What do you want us to do with another report?” she said. “Bring it to court.”

Donald Trump’s defense lawyer Alina Habba isn’t impressing anyone during the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial—least of all Judge Lewis Kaplan, who has become increasingly fed up with the showy attorney and the rest of Trump’s team, regularly glowering and crossing his arms while complaining about their conduct bench-side.

On Thursday, Habba got into another kerfuffle with Kaplan when she flubbed a line of questioning against Carroll, asking the columnist if she “makes a good amount of money” from her Substack.

“What’s ‘a good amount of money?’” interjected Kaplan, stopping Habba. “This is Evidence 101.”

The outburst is the result of days of questioning by Habba that has at times been redundant, unfounded, or inappropriate, leading to countless objections by Carroll’s legal team and interruptions by Judge Kaplan himself.

In another exchange on Thursday, Kaplan blew past a line of questioning pushed by Habba over Carroll’s Substack subscriber count.

“That was definitely asked yesterday,” Kaplan said.

“Number of subscribers?” Habba insisted.

“Eighteen hundred. Move on,” Kaplan retorted.

The two butted heads even more on Wednesday, when Kaplan corrected Habba more than a dozen times, per Business Insider. At one point, Habba interrupted Carroll’s direct testimony to explain what Trump’s team intended to do later.

“The last I heard, Ms. Habba, I do not need announcements from counsel on what they intend to do,” Kaplan threw back.

“And I make the rulings here, not the lawyers,” Kaplan added, before telling Habba to sit down.

During another explosive moment, Kaplan threatened to throw Trump himself out of the courtroom when his comments during Carroll’s testimony could be heard by jurors.

“Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial,” Kaplan warned, noting that his right to attend the trial could be revoked if he continued to be disruptive.

“I would love it! I would love it!” Trump spat back, throwing his hands up in disapproval.

Trump’s lawyers have been walking on eggshells in the trial after Kaplan issued an order last week barring Trump and anyone on his legal team from exploring certain lines of questioning or making certain comments, including about Carroll’s “past romantic relationships, sexual disposition, and prior sexual experiences.” They also cannot argue that Trump—who has already been found liable by a jury for sexual abuse against Carroll—did not sexually abuse, rape, or act with actual malice when defaming the former Elle journalist.

Donald Trump’s legal strategy in his defamation trial apparently hinges on reading mean tweets aloud in the courtroom.

Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba finished cross-examining E. Jean Carroll on Thursday. Presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan has already ruled that Trump defamed Carroll after sexually assaulting her, so the trial is just to determine how much Trump owes her in damages. Carroll is seeking at least $10 million.

During her cross-examination, Habba sought to prove that people began abusing Carroll online before Trump made his defamatory comments. To back up her argument, Habba repeatedly read aloud mean tweets about Carroll.

Habba read out a comment that accused Carroll of “making up fake news” when she revealed that Trump had sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s. Another tweet said, “Drop this lie.”

Another tweet called Carroll a “lying sack of shit,” and a fourth referred to her as a “pathetic liar.” Habba read each of these tweets one by one.

Kaplan clearly grew tired of Habba’s strategy, eventually saying he would just admit the rest into evidence if there were no objections. “You’ve taken enough time on this,” he said.

But Habba pressed on, reading out a tweet that said, “You’re a joke, no one would [willingly] touch your ugly ass.”

When Kaplan told her to move on, Habba pushed back. “I can’t ask about them?” she said. “With all due respect—”

“With all due respect,” Kaplan cut her off, “when I rule, you go on.”

This is the third time in as many days that Habba has irritated Kaplan. The two repeatedly butted heads on Wednesday over Habba’s disruptive behavior in the courtroom. And during opening statements on Tuesday, Habba almost immediately violated the rules Kaplan had set about what Trump’s team can and cannot say.

Kaplan issued an order last week barring Trump and his lawyers from saying certain things. They are prohibited from making comments about Carroll’s “past romantic relationships, sexual disposition, and prior sexual experiences,” and they cannot argue that Trump did not sexually abuse or rape Carroll or act with actual malice when making his comments about her.

Donald Trump appeared to admit Thursday that some of his actions “cross the line” of legality, but claimed he should be shielded from repercussions because of presidential immunity.

Trump has repeatedly insisted that he cannot be prosecuted for trying to overturn the 2020 election—or for anything else for that matter—because presidential immunity protects him against criminal proceedings.

He presented his own case for immunity on Truth Social in the early morning hours. “A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MUST HAVE FULL IMMUNITY, WITHOUT WHICH IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM/HER TO PROPERLY FUNCTION. ANY MISTAKE, EVEN IF WELL INTENDED, WOULD BE MET WITH ALMOST CERTAIN INDICTMENT BY THE OPPOSING PARTY AT TERM END,” he wrote. “EVEN EVENTS THAT ‘CROSS THE LINE’ MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD.”

“YOU CAN’T STOP POLICE FROM DOING THE JOB OF STRONG & EFFECTIVE CRIME PREVENTION BECAUSE YOU WANT TO GUARD AGAINST THE OCCASIONAL ‘ROGUE COP’ OR ‘BAD APPLE.’ SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH ‘GREAT BUT SLIGHTLY IMPERFECT.’”

This is far from the first time that Trump and his legal team have appeared to insist that the former president should be allowed to get away with breaking the law. While trying to appeal the charges in Trump’s January 6 insurrection case, lawyer John Sauro said that even if a president ordered the assassination of a political opponent, he could only be criminally prosecuted if he was impeached first.

If the president was acquitted during the impeachment, Sauro argued, then he should not have to face criminal proceedings.

And in early January, Trump lawyer Christina Bobb argued that anyone can be president, “whether they are guilty of insurrection or not,” so long as they were elected.

Donald Trump’s hands didn’t look too good on Wednesday, leading to a flurry of theories about the current state of the GOP front-runner’s mental and physical health.

Political advisers and voters alike speculated across the spectrum as to the origin of the dark, red spots on Trump’s hand, arguing that the marks’ origin could be anything from syphilis to ink splotches.

“They don’t look like cuts to me, they look like sores,” said Bill Clinton’s former presidential campaign strategist James Carville, during a livestream. “I’ve asked a number of M.D.s what medical condition manifests itself through hand sores, and the answer is immediate and unanimous: secondary syphilis.”

Earlier on Wednesday, syphilis was trending on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Others pondered whether the mysterious condition emerged due to a rash, dry skin, or even as the result of some emotionally charged tantrum.

“Is it magic marker? Because it looks like he has a sore on his index finger there,” said Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

“There was a point in time during the day where Trump, very frustrated with Judge Kaplan, banged his hands down on the table. I doubt that the blisters or marks that were seen there come from that. But could they be exacerbated by that? Perhaps,” speculated MSNBC’s Lisa Rubin.

“Like a toddler having a tantrum, perhaps, and causing bleeding into his hand?” responded Willie Geist.

Some online posters noticed that the emergence of Trump’s mysterious hand condition coincided with a bizarre speech Wednesday night, theorizing that Trump’s cluttered and nonsensical speech could be a symptom of late-stage syphilis. 

“We’re also going to place strong protections to stop banks and regulators from trying to debank you from your—you know, your political beliefs what they do. They want to debank you, and we’re going to debank—think of this. They want to take away your rights, they want to take away your country, the things you’re doing,” Trump said during a New Hampshire campaign rally, immediately before diving into a rant about electric cars.