T-Squared: Texas Tribune and partners share Collier Prize for State Government Accountability

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The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and FRONTLINE were honored today with the 2024 Collier Prize for State Government Accountability for our reporting on the tragic mishandling of the response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24, 2022.

Our entry for the award includes “Someone Tell Me What to Do,” a Texas Tribune-ProPublica investigation that established that across the country, states require more training to prepare students and teachers for mass shootings than for those expected to protect them, and a documentary film, “Inside the Uvalde Response,” that was produced by FRONTLINE, the PBS documentary series, in collaboration with the Tribune and ProPublica.

“A standout investigation into the missteps of law enforcement during one of the most horrific school shootings in recent U.S. history,” wrote one of the Collier Prize judges. “The accompanying FRONTLINE documentary was especially strong, using officer body-cam footage and recording debriefings with officers to take viewers inside the investigation of what went wrong and why those entrusted to protect children and teachers failed to act until it was too late to save some of the victims.”

Following the 1999 Columbine shooting, law enforcement agencies across the country began retooling protocols to prevent long delays like the one that kept officers there from stopping the two shooters. Key among the changes was an effort to ensure that all officers had enough training to engage a shooter without having to wait for more specialized teams.

More than two decades later, law enforcement’s chaotic response in Uvalde and officers’ subsequent explanations of their inaction showed that the promise of adequate training to respond to a mass shooting has yet to be fully realized.

Officers failed to set up a clear command structure. They spread incorrect information that caused them to treat the shooter as a barricaded suspect and not an active threat even as children and teachers called 911 pleading for help. And no single officer engaged the shooter despite training that says they should do so as quickly as possible if anyone is hurt. It took 77 minutes to breach the classroom and take down the shooter.

Long after most television crews left Uvalde, the Tribune and ProPublica stayed on, visiting Uvalde regularly and building trust with survivors and grieving families. Our journalists obtained a vital trove of investigative materials, including interviews with almost 150 officers who responded, as well as hours of body-camera footage and 911 calls, and used them to produce a comprehensive account of what happened.

After the investigation was published, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland unveiled the long-awaited findings of a federal probe into the response. He pointed to missteps that led to delays in confronting the shooter. Then he turned to what he said was the biggest failure, one that required the most urgent action to avoid another colossal breakdown such as the one that cost lives that day: a need to better train officers for the likelihood that they will have to engage a mass shooter.

The $25,000 Collier Prize, now in its fifth year, is one of the largest journalism awards and is designed to encourage coverage of state government, focusing on investigative and political reporting. Offered by the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications and funded by Florida housing developer Nathan S. Collier, the prize will be presented at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday.

While it is gratifying to win an award, this was one of the most emotionally difficult stories any of us had ever covered. We are grateful to the survivors and relatives of victims in Uvalde who entrusted us with their stories. We hope that our work might better inform and prepare law enforcement agencies that have the difficult task of training officers to react to mass shootings.

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