Feb 2024. Blues Vol 40 No. 2

up in a country where an 18-year-old has
easy access to a weapon that belongs on
the battlefield, not in a classroom,” Garland
said. “And communities across the country,
and the law enforcement officers who protect
them, deserve better than to be forced
to respond to one horrific mass shooting
after another. But that is the terrible reality
that we face. And so it is the reality that
every law enforcement agency in every
community across the country must be
prepared for.”
Mo Canady, executive director of the
National Association of School Resource
Officers, said in an interview that he appreciates
the emphasis the Department
of Justice placed on widespread active-shooter
training. Still, Canady said he
is frustrated that leaders have not already
learned that “25-year-old lesson” after the
shootings at Columbine High, Sandy Hook
Elementary and Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School.
Since the 1999 Columbine shooting, law
enforcement officers have been trained to
prioritize stopping the shooter. The report
stated that everything else, including officer
safety, should be secondary, adding
that efforts to engage the shooter “must
be undertaken regardless of the equipment
and personnel available.”
“We’ve got to understand what the priorities
are and, quite frankly, I see there are
not a lot of priorities greater than keeping
students safe at school,” Canady said.
Kimberly Mata-Rubio, whose 10-year-old
daughter Lexi was killed in the shooting,
said she hopes the report’s findings lead to
action, that “the failures end today and that
local officials do what wasn’t done that
day, do right by the victims and survivors
of Robb Elementary: terminations, criminal
prosecutions and that our state and federal
government enacts sensible gun laws.”
Garland directed questions about whether
any officers who responded to the shooting
would be criminally charged to the local
district attorney, saying that was not within
the jurisdiction of the federal government.
Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell
initially planned to present her case
to a grand jury in late 2023 but later told
the Associated Press that her investigation
86 The Blues - February January ‘24