Multiple law enforcement officers have been ordered to testify before a grand jury investigating the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting.
According to reports by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV, the subpoenas for in-person testimony at Uvalde County Courthouse are the result of a 21-month investigation into the flawed response to the Robb Elementary School shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
While the grand jury investigation is expected to take anywhere from several weeks to months, the results could possibly lead to charges against the officers for not promptly stopping the gunman in the May 24, 2022, mass shooting.
Nearly 400 law enforcement officials reacted to the Uvalde elementary school mass shooting, but "egregiously poor decision-making" led to over an hour of chaos before police confronted and killed the gunman.
The news comes a month after the Department of Justice highlighted numerous "failures" in a comprehensive report. The DOJ collected over 14,000 pieces of evidence, including audio and video recordings, photographs, and interview transcripts. According to the report, officers waited for 77 minutes outside a classroom while the gunman remained inside with injured students and teachers.
"A series of major failures, failures in leadership, in tactics, in communications, in training and preparedness were made by law enforcement leaders and others responding to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary," U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said. "As a result, 33 students and three of their teachers, many of whom had been shot, were trapped in a room with an active shooter for over an hour as law enforcement officials remained outside."
The reports from both networks do not specify the number of officers subpoenaed or whether any are targets of the investigation, but they do confirm that testimony is set to begin next week at the Uvalde County courthouse.
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