After shooting and wounding his grandmother at their home, Ramos drove to Robb Elementary School, where he entered a classroom and shot his victims, having bypassed local and state officers who had been in the hallways.

As a consequence, law enforcement officials in Uvalde were criticized for their response, and their conduct was reviewed in separate investigations by the Texas Ranger Division and United States Department of Justice.

[13] The Texas Department of Public Safety acknowledged it was an error for law enforcement to delay an assault on Ramos' position in the student-filled classrooms, attributing this to the school district police chief's assessment of the situation as one with a "barricaded subject", instead of an "active shooter".

[31] The state of Texas had given UCISD a $69,141 grant to improve security measures as part of a $100 million statewide allocation made after the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting, in which ten people were slain.

[70] Separately, Reyes said in past security checks, the classroom 111 door that was meant to be locked during lessons remained unlocked because "the latch was stuck," and that he had told the principal about this issue.

[13] United States Marshals Service deputies drove nearly 70 miles (110 km) to the school and arrived at 12:10 p.m., where they helped officers initially confront the shooter, render first aid, and secure the perimeter.

[76] The school district's police chief, Pedro Arredondo, erroneously determined that the situation had "transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject" according to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).

[136] Ramos sent an Instagram message to an acquaintance he met through Yubo, which showed the receipt for an AR-15 style rifle purchased from Georgia-based online retailer Daniel Defense eight days before the shooting.

"[146] When Uvalde Police Department's acting chief Lieutenant Mariano Pargas was interviewed by authorities two days after the shooting, he did not mention that he had known at the time that there were children in the classroom with the shooter.

[149] Freeman F. Martin, deputy director of Homeland Security Operations at the Texas DPS, informed Burrows that the district attorney of Uvalde County has objected to the release of a portion of a video taken in the hallway during the police response.

[32] That night, UCISD's superintendent Hal Harrel announced in a letter sent to parents that the school year had concluded for the entire district, including the cancelation of a planned graduation ceremony.

[195] On June 7, the Department of Homeland Security warned, "Individuals in online forums that routinely promulgate domestic violent extremist and conspiracy theory-related content have praised [this shooting] and encouraged copycat attacks", while others tried to "spread disinformation and incite grievances, including claims it was a government-staged event meant to advance gun control measures".

[208] Before tactical units arrived, police officers inside the school, who numbered at least 19, made "no effort" to breach the room where Ramos was located, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).

[215] On June 9, The New York Times determined through an investigative review that police officers were aware that there were injured individuals trapped inside classrooms before they decided to breach the entrance.

On July 17, the Texas House Investigative Committee released a 77-page report[11] on "systemic failures and egregiously poor decision making" that exacerbated the shooting, and criticized state and federal officials and agencies in addition to local police.

[220] McCraw also said on that day that law enforcement "engaged the active shooter and continued to keep him pinned down in that location, until a tactical team" was assembled to breach the room to kill Ramos.

[233] Uvalde city officials then pressured McCraw to publicly endorse their storyline and hold a press conference in which he was asked to change his depiction of events into a version more favorable to their liking: one in which "the quick arrival of officers at the school" would be promoted, highlighting "their success in containing the gunman."

[232] The city claimed, "There was zero hesitation on any of these officers' part, they moved directly toward the gunfire" and "The total number of persons saved by the heroes that are local law enforcement and the other assisting agencies is over 500."

The document defended the delayed police response prior to final confrontation with the gunman, stating that time was "not wasted but each minute was used to save lives of children and teachers" and that "Absent the shields, every U.P.D.

[255][256][257] Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) described the shooting as an "unbelievably tragic and horrible crime", and she expressed support for red flag laws that help restrict potentially violent individuals from accessing firearms.

[262] Partly based on a rumor started by an anonymous user on the /pol/ imageboard on 4chan,[263][264] Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) made unsubstantiated claims, on Twitter the day after the shooting, that the perpetrator was a "transsexual leftist illegal alien";[265][266] the tweet was taken down within two hours.

[277] President Andrés Manuel López Obrador commented on the Hispanic origin of the majority of the victims, noting, "Just look at the surnames; they are children, grandchildren of Mexicans... it hurts us a lot.

[299][300] Users on social media accused Cruz of hypocrisy for accepting money from gun interest groups, and for planning to speak at the NRA's annual meeting being held in Houston with Abbott and Cornyn.

[303] At the event, Trump and other Republicans rejected gun reforms, with Senator Cruz blaming mass shootings in the U.S. on a "cultural sickness" based on fatherless children and an alleged link between violence and video games, and advocated for arming teachers and redesigning schools to have only one entrance and exit.

[323] On June 27, 2024, the grand jury indicted first Uvalde school district police chief Pedro Arredondo and another former officer, Adrian Gonzales, on charges of child endangerment, a state felony.

[327][328] A Uvalde staff member filed a petition for information about Daniel Defense on June 2, attempting to make a prima facie case against the gunmaker for its marketing of the weapons.

[330] On June 7, attorney Thomas J. Henry filed a lawsuit, on behalf of four families of students injured in the shooting, against Ramos' estate and sought answers about how he had gained access to the school.

Oasis Outback, which delivered the rifle used in the attack to Ramos, was accused of negligent transfer of firearms as well as the fact that the store "had a duty not to sell weapons to the just-turned 18-year-old shooter, who it knew or reasonably should have known was likely to harm himself or others".

[334] Starting on May 26, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada took steps in proposing new firearms regulations,[335][336][337] including a freeze on handgun sales on October 24.

[348] Similar frustration was echoed by survivors and family members who waited for investigations and legal cases to finish and policy to change, and many of these topics have caused anger and strife to be seen throughout Uvalde.