Washington, DC - Patrick Yoes, National President of the Fraternal Order of Police, offered the following statement regarding the recent report by the Texas House Investigative Committee on the police response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas:

“We have now read the after-action reports and we have seen the videos of the police response.  There were tragic mistakes made that day and an inexcusable failure of leadership.  As a result, two teachers and 19 students—children—had their lives ended that day by a reckless, depraved teen-aged shooter seeking to kill as many people as possible without any regard for his own life.

“Nothing we can do now will change this terrible loss of life; we can only hope that time will heal the wounds of the families who lost a loved one on that awful day.

“As law enforcement professionals dedicated to the service and protection of our communities, especially our children, we know we must do better than we did on this tragic day.  Lives were needlessly lost and we must do everything in our power to learn from these mistakes and make sure that what we saw play out at Robb Elementary School never happens again.  We owe this to the memories of the children and brave teachers who died that day in Uvalde.”