AUSTIN, Texas — Uvalde city leaders on Sunday placed acting police Chief Lt. Mariano Pargas on administrative leave as they launch an internal review of the department’s response to Texas’ deadliest school shooting.
The moves follow the Sunday release of a 77-page report by a Texas House committee charged with reviewing the action taken by law enforcement during the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary. Former Austin police detective Jesse Prado, a private investigator, will conduct the investigation.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin echoed the sentiment from the report’s findings that “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making” were factors in the shooting and subsequently in the decision to place Pargas, who was acting police chief on the day of the school massacre, on leave.
“We feel like that was the right call until we get all of the facts,” McLaughlin said.
City officials did not say whether Pargas would continue to be paid.
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The internal investigation will delve into whether Pargas was responsible for taking command, steps taken to establish that command and the interaction between the number of responding agencies.
“We agree with the committee’s review of the incident, there was a failure of command,” McLaughlin said in a release. ”We want to know which agency took what specific actions to take command, and where did the critical breakdown occur.”
Some of the footage shows students being rescued through windows in classrooms away from the shooting in Rooms 111 and 112. One officer uses a collapsible baton to smash a window as another yells into the opening: “Is anybody in here? Police! I want everyone to come to the window right now.”
As children are carefully helped out to avoid broken glass, they run to waiting officers in a nearby parking lot. “It’s OK. It’s OK. Run, run. run!” an officer says.