The Justice Department has released a report on the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, informing us of what we largely already knew — that the shooting could have and should have been stopped much sooner than it was. This is known as "belaboring the obvious."

Officers had many opportunities as the 2022 school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was still unfolding to reassess their flawed response to the shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead, the US Justice Department concludes in a damning new report.

Bursts of gunfire, reports a teacher had been shot, then a desperate call from a student trapped with the gunman could – and should – all have prompted a drive to stop the bloodshed far sooner, the Critical Incident Review released Thursday says.

Instead, it took 77 minutes from when the 18-year-old shooter walked into Robb Elementary School until he was stopped. The carnage remains among the deadliest episodes in America’s ongoing scourge of campus shootings.  

It didn't take long for the usual suspects to climb up on the victim's bodies, of course.

See Related: CNN Exploits Grief of Uvalde Mothers to Push Gun Control Narrative

The opportunity here is for not only Texas but American law enforcement and first responders to absorb this report, the information we already have about this incident, and the examples set by the inaction of Uvalde's police force to find better tactics for dealing with these kinds of things, but in cases like this, a police officer should be running to the sound of the guns — no cop can do very wrong by moving in to protect children. But the Uvalde authorities did not do this. The Uvalde acting police chief and the county sheriff didn't even coordinate their efforts, even though, at one point, they were only a few feet apart.

See Related: Texas Rejects Gun Control, Implements Real Solution to Protect Children After Uvalde Shooting

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There are families of children in Uvalde with questions: Why did the Uvalde police not move in sooner? Would their child be alive today if they did? Since the Uvalde police didn't act, why were parents prevented from doing so?

Never having experienced it, I can only imagine what it's like to lose a child. It's even harder to imagine what it's like to lose a child to an armed nut. But it's hardest to imagine losing a child in a shooting, knowing that it didn't have to happen. 

“The response to the May 24, 2022, mass casualty incident at Robb Elementary School was a failure,” the Justice Department report concludes bluntly.

“Their loved ones deserved better,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday of the victims, whose families he met with a day earlier.

“The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022 – and then the hours and days after – was a failure that should not have happened,” he said in an afternoon news conference.  

It's a rare day when I agree with Merrick Garland on anything, but this statement is correct. This should not have happened. It should not have gone on as long as it did. The entire episode was a cavalcade of mistakes. And children died because of those mistakes.