You see, yeah, one guy washing his hands with hand sanitizer on the wall, you know, some fist bumps and other guy. I see, I saw a couple of cell phones. You see, officers peek around the corner every once in a while. But what I don't see is law enforcement who is focused on we have a hot threat down the hallway. And we need to be aware of that at all times.
Former FBI agent Katherine Schweit describes the school security camera video of how law enforcement officers waited 77 minutes before stopping an active shooter who massacred elementary school students in Uvalde, Texas.
Schweit started the FBI’s active shooter training program and conducted landmark research on mass shootings.
I’m investigative reporter Robert Riggs here with a newly released damning report about the police response conducted by an investigating committee of the Texas House of Representatives
The 77-page report concluded that no one was able to stop the gunman from carrying out the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, in part because of “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making” by nearly everyone involved who was in a position of power.
376 law enforcement officers descended on the school in a chaotic scene devoid of clear leadership and a sense of urgency to take down the gunman, according to the report.
It is the most exhaustive account of what happened and the report was released on Sunday, July 17th 2022.
It found that the mass killer had been dubbed "school shooter" on social media a year before the massacre because of his violent threats against others.
The high school dropout and social outcast consumed gore and violent sex online. Sometimes he shared videos and images of suicides and beheadings.
In real life, the killer who lived with his grandmother was fired from two fast-food jobs for harassing a female coworker at one and refusing to speak to coworkers at the other.
He spent more than $3,000 on two AR-15-style rifles and accessories when he turned 18, two weeks before he attacked the school. The massacre was the first time that he had ever handled a firearm.
The committee found that the killer took advantage of complacent attitudes about school security. Doors were routinely left unlocked and propped open. Teachers had become desensitized to false alarms and did not quickly react to a lockdown alert.
The report suggests that stopping the gunman sooner could have made a difference.
“Given the information known about victims who survived through the time of the breach and who later died on the way to the hospital, it is plausible that some victims could have survived if they had not had to wait 73 additional minutes for rescue.”
The critical report underscores the indecisive and disorganized police response recorded on the school's security cameras.
Images of police standing around waiting for more than an hour while wounded victims needed medical aid drew outrage across the United States.
Nineteen fourth-grade students and two teachers died at the hands of an 18-year-old mass killer.
Security camera footage inside the Robb Elementary School graphically recorded the delayed response.
It contradicts everything the FBI has taught U.S. law enforcement since the Columbine Colorado High School massacre occurred 23 years ago in April 1999.
Katherine Schweit, the former FBI agent and executive who established the Bureau's active shooting training program, emphasizes that even if an officer responds alone, they are supposed to go in harm's way to neutralize the gunman to stop the carnage.
Time is of the essence.
Schweit says indecision and a lack of clear leadership turned a bad situation into a catastrophe.
The one-hour and 22-minute video recorded by school security cameras as well as some officer’s body cameras shows how easy it was for the gunman to enter the school and shoot his way into two classrooms with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle.
The video begins with footage from a security camera mounted on a funeral home located across the street from the Robb Elementary School.
The gunman speeds down a sidestreet in his pickup and looses control as he tries to turn left onto the street in front of the school.
The truck crashes out of sight into deep ditch.
Two bystanders at the funeral home quickly walk toward the wreck to render aid when suddenly the gunman opens fire on them.
The men turn and start running back to the funeral home. One trips rolling over in the street and pops back up on his feet.
Meanwhile, the gunman dressed in black, carrying the assault rifle, climbs over a chain link fence and starts shooting at the school.
A teacher calls 911. You can hear gunshots in the background. She yells that the kids are running and cries out, “Oh my God.”
The gunman peppers the exterior of the school with a barrage of bullets which is heard on the tape.
The teacher screams to the top of her lungs to students, “Get down! Get in your rooms! Get in your rooms!
Across the street from the school, a bystander using his cell phone records the gunman entering the school.
Inside, a school security camera records the gunman coming through the door.
It is an 18-year old man with long shoulder length curly black hair.
Dressed head to toe in black assault gear with extra magazines full of bullets tuck in its vest pockets.
He cradles his powerful assault rifle.
He calmly walks down a colorful blue and green corridor decorated with children’s artwork and glances from side to side.
He walks past two doors and a bathroom and turns right.
He brushes hair out of his eyes and lets the assault rifle briefly swing free from his right arm.
He walks about 50 feet down the brightly painted hallway.
A little boy emerges from a bathroom behind the gunman, turns a corner and stops.
The gunman doesn’t spot the boy as he turns to the left facing the door of two classrooms.
He triggers his first barrage of many bullets.
The boy turns and runs back inside the bathroom.
The gunman leaves the camera’s view as he walks into the classrooms firing.
Inside out of sight of the security camera, it records the sound of repeated bursts of gunfire for two and half minutes.
The screams of crying children were edited out the video.
The gunfire starts and stops again and again and again.
It sounds like the gunman is moving around the room to execute the children and two teachers methodically.
Again, the children’s screams were muted from the video between the bursts of gunfire.
The active-shooter fires salvo after salvo of rounds.
Within three minutes four officers arrive in view of the camera. Three of them move down the hallway toward the classrooms and sound of gunfire.
The fourth officer hangs back and checks his cellphone.
His wife, a teacher contacts him to say she has been shot and is dying.
He leaves the scene.
The gunman opens fire through the classroom door and the three officer beat a frantic retreat back down the hallway.
The sound of gunfire continues to echo out the classrooms.
More heavily armed officers some with ballistic shields arrive and congregate in the hallway. A few point their weapons down the hallway toward the classroom but don’t advance.
45 minutes after the police first arrive inside the school, four more shots are heard coming from the classroom.
A half dozen officers move toward the classroom down the hallway but don’t make entry.
9 minutes after the gunshots, the video records officers milling about.
One officer wearing a helmet and ballistic vest pauses to squirt hand sanitizer from a wall-mounted dispenser and rubs his hands together.
Finally at 12:50 PM, 77 minutes after officers first arrived, law enforcement agents enters the classroom and shoots the mass killer to death.
The failure to immediately stop the killer has set off questions about how many wounded children may have bled to death and why officers let precious minutes pass for more than an hour.
In a moment, I will be back with former FBI Executive Agent Katharine Schweit, who ran the bureau’s landmark study of active shooters and created the training program.
We will hear Schweit’s expert opinion about the response in Uvalde.
I have placed a link to the video in our show notes. I do want to warn you that it is graphic and it is disturbing.
Katherine Schweit
And you see, yeah, one guy washing his hands with hand sanitizer on the wall. You know, some fist bumps. Another guy, I see. I saw a couple of cell phones. You see officers peek around the corner every once in a while. But what I don't see is law enforcement who is focused on we have a hot threat down the hallway, and we need to be aware of that at all times.
Robert Riggs
Former FBI agent Catherine Schweit describes the school security camera video of how law enforcement officers waited 77 minutes before stopping an active shooter who massacred elementary school students in Uvalde, Texas, Schweitz started the FBI's active shooter training program and conducted landmark research on mass shootings. I'm investigative reporter Robert Riggs here with a newly released damning report about the police response conducted by an investigating committee of the Texas House of Representatives, the 77-page report concluded that no one was able to stop the gunman from carrying out the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, in part because of systemic failures and egregious poor decision making by nearly everyone involved who was in a position of power, 376 law enforcement officers descended on the school in a chaotic scene, devoid of clear leadership and a sense of urgency to take down the gunman, according to the report, it is the most exhaustive account of what happened, and the report was released on Sunday, july 17, 2022. It found that the mass killer had been dubbed "school shooter" on social media a year before the massacre because of his violent threats against others, the high school dropout and social outcasts consumed gore and violent sex online. Sometimes he shared videos and images of suicides and beheadings. In real life, the killer who lived with his grandmother was fired from two fast food jobs for harassing a female coworker at one, and refusing to speak to coworkers at the other, he spent more than $3,000 on two AR-15 style rifles and accessories when he turned 18. Two weeks before he attacked the school, the massacre was the first time that he had ever handled a firearm, the committee found that the killer took advantage of complacent attitudes about school security. Doors were routinely left unlocked and propped open. The report suggests that stopping the gunman sooner could have made a difference, given the information known about the victims who survived through the time of the breach and who later died on the way to the hospital, it is plausible that some victims could have survived if they had not had to wait 73 additional minutes for rescue. The critical report underscores the indecisive and disorganized police response recorded on the school security cameras. Images of police standing around waiting for more than an hour while wounded victims needed medical attention drew outrage across the United States. 19/4-grade students and two teachers died at the hands of the killer, security camera footage inside the Robb Elementary School graphically recorded the delayed response. It contradicts everything the FBI has taught U.S. law enforcement since the Columbine, Colorado high school massacre occurred 23 years ago in April of 1999. Catherine Schweitz, the former FBI agent and executive who established the bureau's active shooter training program, emphasizes that even if an officer responds alone, they are supposed to go into harm's way to neutralize the gunman to stop the carnage. Time is of the essence, Schweit says. Indecision. and a lack of clear leadership turned a bad situation into a catastrophe. The one-hour and 22-minute video recorded by school security cameras, as well as some officers' body cameras, shows how easy it was for the gunman to enter the school and shoot his way into two classrooms with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. The video begins with the footage from a security camera mounted on a funeral home located across the street from the Robb Elementary School. The gunman speeds down a side street in his pick. Up and loses control as he tries to turn left onto the street in front of the school. The truck crashes out of sight into a deep ditch. Two bystanders at the funeral home quickly walk toward the wreck to render aid. When suddenly the gunman opens fire on them, the men turn and start running back to the funeral home, one trips, rolling over in the street and pops back up on his feet. Meanwhile, the gunman dressed in black, carrying the assault rifle, climbs over a chain-link fence and starts shooting at the school. A teacher calls 911. You can hear gunshots in the background. She yells that the kids are running and cries out, "Oh my God! The gunman peppers the exterior of the school with a barrage of bullets, which is heard on the tape. The teacher screams to the top of her lungs to students, "Get down! Get in your rooms!
Robert Riggs
Get in your rooms! Across the street from the school, a bystander using his cell phone records the gunman entering the school. Inside, a school security camera records the gunman coming through the door. It is an 18-year-old man with long shoulder-length curly black hair, dressed head to toe in black assault gear, with extra magazines full of bullets tucked in his vest pockets. He cradles his powerful assault rifle. He calmly walks down a colorful blue and green corridor decorated with children's artwork, and glances from side to side. He walks past two doors in a bathroom and turns right. He brushes hair out of his eyes and lets the assault rifle briefly swing free from his right arm. He walks about 50 feet down the brightly painted hallway. A little boy emerges from a bathroom behind the gunman, turns a corner, and stops. The gunman doesn't spot the boy as he turns to the left, facing the door of two classrooms, he triggers his first barrage of many bullets. The boy turns and runs back inside the bathroom. The gunman leaves the camera's view as he walks into the classrooms, firing. Inside, out of sight of the security camera, it records the sound of repeated bursts of gunfire for two and a half minutes. The screams of crying children were edited out of the video. The gunfire starts and stops again, again and again. It sounds like the gunman is moving around the room to execute the children and two teachers methodically. Again, the children's screams were muted from the video between the burst of gunfire. The active shooter fires salvo after salvo of rounds. Within three minutes, four officers arrive in view of the camera. Three of them move down the hallway toward the classrooms and sound a gunfire. The fourth officer hangs back and checks his cell phone. His wife, a teacher, contacts him to say she has been shot and is dying. He leaves the scene. The gunman opens fire through the classroom door, and the three officers beat a frantic retreat back down the hallway. The sound of gunfire continues to echo out of the classrooms. More heavily armed officers, some with ballistic shields, arrive and congregate in the hallway. A few point their weapons down the hallway toward the classroom, but don't advance. 45 minutes after the police first arrive inside the school, four more shots are heard coming from the classroom. A half dozen officers move toward the classroom down the hallway, but don't make entry. Nine minutes after the gunshots, the video records officers milling about. One officer wearing a helmet and ballistic vest pauses to squirt hand sanitizer from a wall-mounted dispenser, and rubs his hands together. Finally, at 12:50 p.m. 77 minutes after officers first arrived, law enforcement agents enter the classroom and shoot the mass killer to death. The failure to immediately stop the killer has set off questions about how many wounded children may have bled to death, and why officers let precious minutes pass for more than an hour. In a moment, I will be back with former FBI executive agent Catherine Schweit, who ran the bureau's landmark study of active shooters and created the training program. We will hear Schweitz expert opinion about the response in Uvalde. I have placed a link to the video in our show notes. I do want to warn you that it is graphic, and it is disturbing. Catherine, I've looked at the Yavalli video. You've looked at the Yavalli video from the perspective of everything you learned about active shooters in your study with the FBI. What do you see there?
Katherine Schweit
Boy, I see a lot of. This is a $64,000 question, isn't it? You know, I see a lot of people who probably want to do the right thing and they don't know what to do, and that makes me very sad. Is
Robert Riggs
it marked by indecision or a lack of leadership?
Katherine Schweit
You know, I think we're going to have to still, astonishing as it is, we're still going to have to get a lot more information from interviews with people, from body camera footage, and things that still, even after all this time, haven't been released. Cameras elsewhere that might be available in the school. So I think you know with that caveat that I don't have all the information. I mean it's clear to me from having you know run to scenes, having talked to officers who run to scenes. For anybody who's in law enforcement, you know you go to the scene, you're the you when you arrive at the scene, you're in charge. So whoever those first officers were who ran down the hallway, they were in charge. They had to make the decision to go through that door. They didn't make that decision. Why they didn't make that decision, I don't know.
Robert Riggs
They arrive within three minutes. You can hear the gunfire. Right. Gets down to the door, but once he starts shooting through the door. I mean,
Katherine Schweit
you know what? I think that you know that I think what you're doing is compressing the time a little bit there, though. You know, we did see you know there's a long version of the film. There's a little bit shorter version of the film. The officers absolutely arrived at the doorway, not when they were being shot back at. So when they first arrived at the doorway, there weren't any rounds being discharged, and they should have gone through the door at that moment, that very moment. They should have gone through the door, and that's how they're trained. And you know, I I know that I will say this as a long time, you know, 20 years in the FBI, longtime law enforcement officer. You don't want to criticize another officer's conduct because you weren't there, and you don't know what they were thinking, and what they had to deal with, and what they could hear, you know, what they could smell, the distractions, the equipment they had. Every one of those little pieces of information, you know, is critical to fully understanding the circumstances. But what we do know for sure is that we had several officers, 234, officers, because they came in from the door and the hallway down. You know, the hallway down that you could just see the feet moving. They came in around the same time. They approached the door, and maybe there was uncertainty about what door they should go through. Maybe they didn't know, given the positioning on one of them. I wonder if they just didn't know what door to go through. But they should have gone through all the doors. They should, you know, they should have gone through the doors that they had in front of them, no questions asked. And presumably, even if the shooting had stopped, you know, the footage that was released muted the sounds of the cries and the screams, which I think we're all thankful for. Although somebody asked me earlier in the week, should they have let all those screams go so you could hear it, so people would be more astonished and shocked? But they they should have been able to tell where the shooter was by the sounds of the inside the classrooms. That's what I think.
Robert Riggs
Well, you do see then later, lots of officers with ballistic vest, even some with helmets, congregate at the end of that corridor, and are almost at times just milling around. I think they were doing the same thing.
Katherine Schweit
Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but I think they were doing the same thing, you know, on the other hallway on the outside of the building. Is there's you said officers milling around? That's really the word I would use too. Is milling around? You you know you go to a scene that's a hot scene, you know, in law enforcement language, right? Hot scene is you have somebody who's you know killing or trying to kill people you have danger you would never let a civilian into that area that's a hot scene you wouldn't even let an ambulance person come in unless you were trying to protect unless you had an officer assigned to them to protect them, because it's a hot scene. So, what I saw a lot of a lot of action at that end of the hallway were officers who didn't even think it was a hot scene. They didn't even think that there was any potential danger. They didn't worry that somebody was going to. Who had just you know shot off a bunch of rounds from what seemed probably like a semi-automatic weapon and would have run back down the hallway at them? What if the kid had come out of the classroom, shot everybody, and continued down the hallway? They they would have been surprised. So they weren't reacting. They weren't ready. They were at. They weren't at. You know, at low ready, which is you know what we'd call it. They weren't ready in case to engage. They some of them were in the very beginning, but then event. But then eventually, they just kind of, well, okay, we're not. We don't know what's going on down there, but somebody's making a decision about what's going on, and it's not us.
Robert Riggs
There's one moment that has really drawn public criticism, and it's when the the officer cleans his hands with hand sanitizer.
Katherine Schweit
Yeah, you know, I saw that, and I was offended by it. Like I'm sure everybody else was too. You know, I think if you haven't seen the video, maybe just set the scene. That what we really see is we see the subject come in through a side door. He walks maybe 15 or 20 paces, and then he turns towards away from the camera, and he goes down a hallway. And then you see him, you hear him firing some shots into a classroom, and then he promptly goes into that classroom, and that's where most of the deaths occurred. Right, that's where the deaths occurred. So that hallway where he made his turn is really what you're talking about. We know that there was a there was kind of a you know there was a surveillance camera closed caption you know or there was a closed circuit camera at the like at the ceiling of that and you could see when he came in you could see when he turned and you could see when the officers rushed in behind him three minutes later. And the officers rushed in, but then three of them ran down the hallway, presumably following the sound of gunshots, and they knew where to go. They ran down the hallway, so they knew where they needed to go, and then they stopped. And then, like you said, so there was a distance, right, of where that happened, and then where that corner was is where we saw this immense volume of law enforcement personnel who had apparently nothing else to do milling around at the end of the hallway, where right where the camera was mounted, and you see, yeah, one guy washing his hands with hand sanitizer on the wall. You know, some fist bumps. Another guy, I see. I saw a couple of cell phones. You see officers peek around the corner every once in a while. But what I don't see is law enforcement who is focused on we have a hot threat down the hallway, and we need to be aware of that at all times.
Robert Riggs
So, with with all the training recommendations that came out of your study at the FBI on active shooters, and the money the FBI has spent, what do you what do you think went wrong here? What what does it say that's happened.
Katherine Schweit
You know, I will say this. You know, the FBI didn't invent active shooter training, right? I mean, we we pushed it out nationally. We pushed out a national standard for sure. But after Columbine, you know, in '99, everybody knew that the training needed to change for law enforcement in a lot of organizations, big and little, created training and worked on training in the FBI after Sandy Hook. You know that's the team that I ran after Sandy Hook, creating the FBI's active shooter program and and and running that. We thought it was essential at that point to have a consistent training so that no matter who showed up? Everybody understood what the rules of engagement were. Everybody understood. Here's how kind of an incident command runs. You have to have a leader when you get there. You have to respond directly to the shooter. You have to immediately call for backup. You have to. There's a whole kind of list of things that you do, and that was the kind of the training that we pushed out there, and I think that the vast majority of law enforcement officers in the United States have had that training. I think what this episode showed me is that even in Uvalde, they the police department of six had that training. They said what this showed me is you may think you have some training, but I I think every department needs to evaluate whether or not their training will allow them to execute execute the plan because I I mean clearly nobody executed the plan here.
Robert Riggs
When you've watched the video of the active shooter, he walks. He's very calm when he walks in that door. It appears he knows where he's going. He's not doesn't appear hyper and you know ramped up anything, and he's just cradling the assault rifle. Does that tell you anything about him from your for your studies and what you know? I
Katherine Schweit
think he intended to go to the school. Right, there was initial reports that he didn't. But I think, given the fact that he, you know, climbed out of the car, fired at some people, knew where to go in the school, you know, this is small town. We find that school shooters scoot at shoot at their school, or shoot almost, you know, high school shooters shoot where they go to school or went to school. Middle school shooters the same the same way. So I think that he knew he was going there, and he probably, you know, knew people there, right? I don't know that there's any information that he was targeting a particular person, but he was very comfortable walking into that school. He knew that side door was there. He went in the side door. He was just carrying that gun. Clearly, he he had gotten to a point where he was comfortable carrying that gun, and then he was just not necessarily sure what he was going to do. Perhaps, but he knew he wanted to do something, and in his mind, he wanted to probably do something he thought would be remembered or important, and that's typical of what we see with these young shooters.
Robert Riggs
And the audio and the camera records kind of burst after burst of gunfire. He would start, stop, start again, stop. Almost seemed to me that maybe he was methodically moving around the room, shooting people, finishing them off. What, what do you know from your studies when you see that kind of pattern,
Katherine Schweit
unfortunately, I think what I know is not just from studies; it's from actual shootings, right? From watching similar videos. I mean, I've seen footage of shootings, you know, not from the hallway where you know what's going on inside. I've seen shootings, see the video of the shootings, and especially when you're carrying a semi-automatic weapon, you you're going to shoot much more. You're much more inclined to shoot in bursts. You're going to have to change magazines. I think they said he he released 100 rounds, which means he he changed magazines, right? He dropped in and put on a new magazine, at least you know once, twice, and depending on what he was carrying, although probably three times, and the idea that you know he he basically kind of emptied his gun, changed magazines, emptied his gun. So he was probably spraying indiscriminately. 100 rounds or so may seem like a lot to somebody, and you know the evidence collectors will chip every one of those out. A lot of those probably didn't hit their targets, but I also think that he. I'm going to say this, and it's going to sound super sad, but to be truthful, a lot of times shooters, Virginia Tech shooter is a great example. The Pulse nightclub shooter, another great example or sad example: the shooter shoots somebody, but then shoots them again. Goes and shoots people over here, and then turns back to the first person and shoots again. So it's probably more likely, and evidence will have to show. But if I was anticipating what we might see, I would anticipate that in after action we might see that he that he shot across the room, and of course we have witness testimony, so we'll know. But that he shot across a bunch of kids, and then he reloaded, and he shot across a bunch of kids, and he reloaded, and he shot across a bunch of kids, and that's more likely. And I know there were two classrooms involved too, so he was moving, looking for more targets. Once the targets are down on the ground, for the most part, the shooters tend to look for people who aren't on the ground, which is nobody, right? Nobody right away in the first minutes. Everybody drops to the ground. Dropping to the ground, as you've probably heard me say before, is not wise. It's better to train our children to run out of a school classroom, but we don't train to that primarily in the United States. We train, we train to hide, not run, hide, fight. But you know, I'm, I think that that's an opportunity missed to escape, and I don't know what the configuration is. I don't know whether or not we could have gotten the kids out or whatever at this moment, because there was an adjoining door, so I don't mean to speculate as much on that as I just said. But once the kids are down, once people are down in a room, or most of the people are down, then shooters tend to go back to try to essentially put more bullets in them, make sure that nobody's breathing.
Robert Riggs
And so, what one of the questions has arisen, certainly in my mind and others out of this video, is that so much time elapsed. You wondered, did victims bleed out because they didn't get immediate medical care? Could more have been saved?
Katherine Schweit
I think that there will be medical examiner reports that will answer some of those questions for us. Some obviously, there are a lot of people may have been killed instantly because of the type of wound. I think there may be others who the medical examiner's report will say that they bled out and that you know that's going to be the civil actions that'll follow. I think one of the things about bleeding out that's important, you know, after Sandy Hook, although I was on a White House team working on active shooters. You know, my friend Dr. Richard Hunt and our chief medical officer at the and our chief surgeon for our hostage rescue team at the FBI. They were on a team over at the White House working on the Stop the Bleed program and with the American College of Surgeons on the Stop the Bleed program, which is a program to teach people how to use tourniquets and how to pack gauze into wounds so that you don't bleed out, and we felt that that was equally important. We were very supportive of that effort. Our White House team was very supportive of that White House team because even if an ambulance gets to the scene and takes you to a hospital, it's 30 minutes probably at best to get to a hospital. By the time an ambulance or medical assistance gets there, and then they get to you and they get you loaded and they take you to, and then you still have to get to a surgery level. So the Stop the Bleed program, the American College of Surgeons, and others got together and said, "Look, in in in what they a document actually you can look it up. It's called the Hartford Consensus, and they said we believe that this idea of not teaching civilians to use tourniquets and the concept that we all grew up with with don't put a tourniquet on that person will lose their leg is wrong, and for the most part in the United States, you're going. It's going to take three, four, or five hours before you lose that leg if a tourniquet is on it. So if you can get somebody to a hospital in a half an hour, but they were tourniqueted before that, they're going to maybe save that leg. You're going to save them from bleeding out, but they have to have the, they have to have efforts to stop the bleeding, so it's a whole different way than when we grew up. But you know where they learn that they learn that it's one of the lessons they learned from the the war in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Medical, you know, medical. They when somebody gets wounded on the battlefield, you know, there's like essentially like a card, right? They they track them all the way through, and they found out that people who had stopped and had medical intervention at the beginning were the ones who were more likely to live. So you know that's a good thing we learned from a bad thing.
Robert Riggs
Well, during my experience of being embedded during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, you know I remember talking to the medevac crews, both on the ground and in the air, and they all talked about the golden hour. And I, all the units were taught that to put tourniquets on. You've got to take care of your buddy right here and now.
Katherine Schweit
Yeah, and I think we didn't do that for a long time. We we not only didn't do it, we discouraged it in the United States. But now I would urge everybody who's working in a business or school, you know, in their religious institution, to have bleed control kits. It's simple. They're inexpensive. You don't have to get the ones that have perishable gauze. Like in the military, I think a lot of times they use a gauze packing that's that congeals and hardens because they don't really know when they're going to get that care for that young person. But when you're talking about any gauze, I mean, it's like you could pack your T-shirt into a hole and stop bleeding if you pushed hard enough and you pushed enough in there, right? And that's the idea. And so when you talk about 77 minutes, when we talk about 60 minutes after somebody was shot, they're still laying on a floor with their body getting colder and they're bleeding out, you're you're past that time. You can't you can't save somebody if they're if they're bleeding out. You can't. They just get to a point where even if they're alive, they're not going to make it.
Robert Riggs
I do want to add something for our audience members that are really not familiar with firearms, and that is a semi-automatic rifle fires around as fast as you can pull the trigger. I don't know if you want to add to that, but I do. I do want people to understand that that's part of the lethality.
Katherine Schweit
Yeah, when I think if you even kind of do the math, right? They said, "Oh, he shot for two minutes or two and a half minutes. They believe he shot at least 100 rounds. You know, do the math on that. Those were including magazine exchanges, you know. On my handgun, you know, most firearms deaths in the United States are by handgun, and and and you know, as as we've talked about before, two thirds of the firearms deaths in the United States are are suicides. But with these other weapons, they're even you know more. They're even faster. I can fire. You know, part of a regular drill for law enforcement is, you know, please release. You're going to have to shoot, you know, downrange at this target three three rounds in two seconds, you know, or something like that. But firearm shoot a semi-automatic shoots way faster than that. Yes, right. I mean, I have to go click click in two seconds to get off click click. I have to get off three shots, and that's that you know, and magazine exchanges, and we give you eight seconds for six rounds, but you've got to exchange magazines or whatever the numbers are in training in law enforcement. You know, given whatever your agency is, this this type of weapon, you don't have to exchange magazines as fast, and you know that's the criticism that people. Who are you know who are much more advocates of controlling guns or controlling magazines? You can you can release a lot of rounds and you can do a lot of damage. This is not a knife fight. It's not a knife fight. It's bloody and messy and as many magazines as somebody has. And everybody who comes to these scenes has they seem to have hundreds of rounds of ammunition,
Robert Riggs
right? And you know, one thing I learned in the military with the M 16 and these civilian versions are based on that is that they're surprisingly easy to use. You know, you don't have to be a crag marksman.
Katherine Schweit
Yeah, actually, you know, that's you know, when I went to the FBI Academy, I had shot handguns and I had shot shotguns, but I hadn't shot semi-automatic rifles. And of course, the FBI carries those like other law enforcement agencies. And and so in the beginning, I was a little I was a little intimidated. I wasn't really sure, you know, like oh okay, is this going to be a challenge? And I think that's why people like to buy them. There's, there's like nothing easier to shoot. And how horrible is that for me to say those words together? It is very. It's, it's lighter weight. It's all its weight is in the ammunition, and and it's easy. It's a longer barrel, so you know there's a more lethality in terms of both speed and accuracy.
Robert Riggs
And there are a lot of people that enjoy them for the fun at the range, the the kind of the thrill of the power and the sound and everything else as well.
Katherine Schweit
It's a powerful gun, and I think that I you know I have friends who who go out apparently have enough money to spend the ammunition on it. Most of my friends who own own shotguns and rifles really don't shoot them hardly at all. Obviously, the people who have shotguns are, you know, maybe they're shooting trap and skeet and other things like that, you know, every week, you know, at a at a park. But you don't really have a, you don't go out with a rifle to shoot, you know, trap and skeet, right? In in at least not where I live. And handguns, you generally fire, you know, on your family farm, or you fire in, you know, in the in an indoor range.
Robert Riggs
Ultimately, from what you see right now, what are the what do you think the lessons are just by what we've seen? One
Katherine Schweit
of my first concerns was that we had what you mentioned early on, which is we had leadership that dis that didn't disappear. Leadership that never appeared at that scene, and every every scene has to have an incident command. Every scene has to have an incident commander. It does not have to be the chief. It does not. The person who's making the calls are the first person who shows up, the first person who arrives at the scene, the first people at the scene make that decision. But if you're the only one there, you're incident command. And those first officers who went down the hallway, they were trained and they had an obligation to make the decision on whether to go through the door, and I don't know what's in their mind, and I didn't see what they saw. So I think that to be fair, of course, that you know we have to wait for a little bit more information, but I think that's still to come.
Robert Riggs
Catherine, we have a large overseas audience, particularly one in Australia, and this is really hard for them to understand. I've even talked to some Australians who they spent some time in this country on work assignments with their children, and their children went through lockdown drills, and they feel like their kids were traumatized by them. What do you say?
Katherine Schweit
So you know, I'm kind of glad. I'm glad you asked me that in particular because you know, as you know, I have a podcast also called, and my podcast is called "Stop the Killing, and my co-podcaster, who lives in London, she's from New Zealand, her family lives in Australia, so we have a lot of conversations with people, and and and again, my co-podcasters in London. So she is really just what you're talking about, just who you're talking about. She's a person who, in the beginning, she didn't even understand why we have guns here, and especially you know when you talk about Australia, you know there's a country that had a situation occur and did something, you know, what people maybe in our country would say is drastic, but but they made very firm decisions about how they were going to change the laws and and gun ownership in Australia. Same thing happened in New Zealand. Same thing is happening in Canada, and and that's something that again, Sarah Ferris is the name of my my co podcaster, and she will say she's like, "How are we ever going to stop the killing? That's the name of our podcast. How can we do that if you have all these guns? And then we walk through it and talk through it about how the this is a gun culture country. It's different, and that sometimes people say, "Well, you need." Just get rid of the guns. Well, that might have worked. You know, that might have worked a while ago. There were probably about 19 million guns sold in the United States last year. 19 million. When when Australia did its gun buyback, I think they bought back 650,000, 650,000 weapons, I believe. And now in the United States, the semi-automatic weapon that that young man carried into the school at Uvalde is one of about 20 million of those weapons that we have in the United States or more. That was like my last count. It's probably twice that now. So it's there's not an economic road to get us to recover those guns. If there was a willingness to, we would literally have to have people voluntarily give their guns up.
Robert Riggs
Well, Catherine, I want to remind our listeners that we did an episode with you three weeks earlier where we delved into your research on active shooters at the FBI, and I want to remind everybody, you have a podcast called "Stop the Killing, but you also have a book easily found on Amazon called "Stop the Killing. And I think the feedback we really got from those that interview was that they're not any easy answers. This really is a complex subject.
Katherine Schweit
Yeah, you know, I think, and you know, I think that it's why you do your show. You know, it's why we do our podcast because it gives us an opportunity to talk about, you know, every time talk about what are prevention options. You know, what did somebody miss? We we try to pick a subject, like we'll do Uvalde, but you know we've done every other shooting you could think of. We'll you know I think we're taping Christchurch next week. Speaking of you know Australia or Dunblane, one of the two. I'm not sure. And and so those are situations where you say, okay, what do we know ahead of time? What could we have done? What did somebody see that they didn't say something about see something say something one of the warning signs and and I think that's the only way that we're going to get there and what I tried to do in the book was truthfully you know I spent five years running the active shooter program for the FBI creating and running that program and then I spent you know all those five years, I felt like answering the same questions over and over again. Well, what does it mean? Who does it? What does mass shooting mean? How can we stop it? What are the signs of who we're looking for? So that's really why I put the book together. That and the fact that there was a pandemic, so I had nothing else to do but write. Right. Sure. So I so I wrote the book during the pandemic, but then actually it was Sarah Ferris in London who tracked me down, and she said, "I want to do a podcast. And I said, "I don't have time to do a podcast. She really hounded me and said, "I I am the person who is the mom with three kids. I want to have the your I want you to answer my questions. I want you to answer our listeners' questions, and so I mean that's been the kind of fun for me too is to see what do people need to know, which is like when you ask questions, you know that's helpful to me because now I understand. Oh, this is something that people don't you know get messaging on yet, or they don't they don't understand the facts about it. Like even just what I mentioned about suicide, people say, "Oh, it's all these semi-automatic weapons, and we need to get rid of those automatic weapons. They're saying it's almost like they're saying talking points, and how you how you land on on firearms in the United States, which is what I say in the first class. I teach a class in the Second Amendment for DePaul University's College of Law, and the first class, I always say is, you know, what do you think you know? What is your position on this, and why do you think that's your position, or is it just a talking point? Because do you know that most active shooters like this are most active shooters are committed by those types of shootings are committed by handguns? Do you know that two thirds of firearms deaths in the United States are suicides? Do you know that most suicides are middle-aged white males in the rural community? You know, I mean, you have to know what your facts are. You know, as a lawyer, you have to know what your facts are to argue it, and that's what I tell my students. So that's what that's what the value of them. I think that's a nice. That's the beauty of a podcast, you know. My podcast, your podcast-it's that long form that gives you a chance to have a real discussion and have the listeners get a chance to say, "Hey, I didn't, I didn't understand the, I didn't understand how that came down.
Robert Riggs
And you know, the nice thing about this is, in my days of television news, I never had this kind of time. And then, if you look at television news today, on the especially the cable channels, it's just shouting. Nobody can ever have a conversation. Everyone's cutting each other off, and you can't get your thought out. So that's what I really like about this. We can have sort of polite conversations.
Katherine Schweit
I think this. This format has given me an opportunity to speak to people on all ends of the political spectrum, and I love that because I'm not really coming at it at all from a politics standpoint. I'm just coming at it from a fact standpoint. You know, what do I? What? How can I add the facts? And what you said about kind of a mass media network, and they absolutely serve a purpose, but when I go on there, I get like three sentences out, and I have to know ahead of time. That's all I'm going to get. And they always say, "Oh, I wish we had more time, but that's not their format.
Robert Riggs
You know, one other thing. You know, this video was leaked before the families could see
Speaker 1
it,
Robert Riggs
and published by the Austin American Statesman in in the state capital, Austin, and they chose to show the shooter's face, and
Katherine Schweit
yeah,
Robert Riggs
you preach. Yeah, I'm with you. Don't give them glory. A mistake.
Katherine Schweit
I think so. I mean, I don't know. I think that the I think the news agency itself, if it had access to it, could have blurred that out, and they did blur out the young child who stepped into the picture. And obviously, the raw footage does not have that. I saw another copy of the footage that showed that child. It's hard to still see who the child is, but clearly you can see the subject. I see zero reason to ever put that subject's face on anything, let alone video, because you know where that's going. It's getting uploaded onto sites to last forever on the websites that exist for people who want to be mass shooters, who want to be killers.
Robert Riggs
Sadly, his face may end up on T-shirts. That's the nature of the world these days.
Katherine Schweit
Yeah, it's I'm I'm sure that still captures of that have been printed out and are now sticking on somebody's wall in their bedroom, you know, or in a notebook, you know, to say, oh, I want to be like this kid, and really, that kid-he's a nobody. You know, he's a nobody. He-he people sometimes get this idea in their ego. They want to be glorified and in their death, and they want to be remembered. And and those are, you know, we we know better than that. We we don't. I think in the United States we made a big mistake of glorifying a couple of shooters early on with the Columbine shooters through you know news did it, TV did it, people were on the cover of magazines, and there were you know Thursday night television specials on them, and you know all the big news format, bigger news formats in terms of time did pieces on those guys and really made them out to be these these people who had stature and they were heroes when in fact they were just a pair of losers. Truthfully, one of them was a follower, and the other one at Columbine. You know, they made they if you ask people about Columbine killers, and what do you know about them? The chances are that you know the three or four facts that they're going to cough up are all going to be wrong. You know these these kids weren't bullied. They weren't part of a trench coat mafia group. One of them had been to the prom a couple of days earlier. Their intention was to blow up the school. They were not targeting athletes. They were not targeting people who had bullied them. Their intention was to blow up the school, but they did not blow up the school because they didn't create the the right mechanisms to do that. So they just wanted to kill people because of whatever reason, and I see zero reason for us to ever want to highlight those people. I mean, I really encourage people not to not to retweet images of of a shooter, not to you know retweet details about a shooter. You want to consume it, consume it. Don't don't put it back out there. Don't put it back on your Facebook page. Don't put it on Instagram. Don't glorify these guys because the next guy's going to see it, and he's going to think he's going to get glory for it.
Robert Riggs
Well, Catherine, I want to thank you again for coming on to help educate our audience as this unfolds. And again, Catherine Schweitz book is "Stop the Killing. It's available on Amazon and all the bookstores. Catherine, thank you so much.
Katherine Schweit
Thanks very much for taking the time. I really appreciate you helping to educate everybody in what they can do to stop the killing.
Robert Riggs
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