According to the US Justice Department report, the police's response to the deadly school shooting incident in Uvalde, Texas, "demonstrated no urgency".
There was "critical failures" in law enforcement's handling of one of the deadliest massacres at the school in the United States, the report said.
The shooting incident took place on May 24, 2022, at Robb Elementary School. As many as 19 elementary students and two teachers were killed in the shooting in Uvalde, a small Texas town of roughly 15,000.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland visited families in Uvalde and held private meeting with the victims and briefed them ahead of the report's release.
The review by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services was launched just days after the shooting, and local prosecutors are still evaluating a separate criminal investigation by the Texas Rangers.
The review was requested by former Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin after state officials provided conflicting accounts of the incident.
The 80-page report from a panel of state lawmakers and investigations by journalists laid bare how over the course of more than 70 minutes, a mass of officers went in and out of the school with weapons drawn but did not go inside the classroom where the shooting was taking place, reported The Guardian.
The 376 officers at the scene included state police, Uvalde police, school officers and US border patrol agents.
At least five officers have lost their jobs, including two Department of Public Safety officers and Uvalde’s school police chief, Pete Arredondo, who was the on-site commander during the attack.
