Every day since the May 24 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, has brought more agonizing reports about the many failures to stop an 18-year-old from killing 19 fourth graders and two teachers. On Friday, we learned the incident commander departed from 20-plus years of experience by failing to “neutralize the threat” as fast as possible even at the risk of officer safety. While this was the worst breakdown, there were others.
The approach to mass shootings needs to change. The Biden administration should set up the equivalent of the National Transportation Safety Board that investigates and reports publicly on the causes of plane crashes and other transportation accidents.
It’s vital to stop the idea that “thoughts and prayers” are all we can do after mass shootings. As officials with more than 40 years’ experience in homeland security, intelligence and counterterrorism, we understand the importance of first responders and law enforcement learning even from the most horrible attacks like those in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y. It’s equally important for transparency and accountability that these lessons be made public as fully and quickly as possible.
The authority, expertise and integrity to establish an NTSB equivalent already exist within the federal government. The country needs independent, authoritative experts to report on what happened and – this is vital – make public recommendations about how to prevent mass killings and how to keep more people alive when a mass shooting occurs.
The Biden administration can do this now within the FBI, the Department of Justice or the Department of Homeland Security, without waiting for Congress to act. Right now, no one single agency oversees federal lessons-learned efforts, often leading to overlapping and duplication.
The 9/11 Commission was a monumental effort to learn the lessons from the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. Less well-known but equally valuable were lessons-learned efforts from subsequent terrorist attacks. Parallels also exist from building the FBI’s hostage negotiation expertise and the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, which collects expertise about how to successfully question captured terrorists.
The NTSB was set up to investigate aircraft and other transportation accidents and to make recommendations to prevent future accidents — even, where possible, to help people evacuate aircraft on the ground. The NTSB has responsibilities to the families of those killed, including, in some types of accidents, providing counseling and mental health support. When the NTSB makes a recommendation about transportation safety, the secretary of transportation is required to respond within 90 days whether he will implement the recommendations or, if not, why not.
As a result, aviation safety has improved dramatically over the decades. Improving safety is ongoing: The NTSB’s “most wanted list” of safety improvements urges manufacturers, operators and the public to make transportation even safer.
What’s needed is broader than what the Justice Department has announced thus far: an investigation of law enforcement’s response during the shooting. Moreover, we need a permanent body, like the NTSB, that goes into action without waiting.
The Biden administration could set up and resource a standing group of expert investigators to supplement regular criminal investigations by collecting information as a basis for recommendations to help prevent future shootings and reduced future death tolls. It is vitally important that those recommendations be public and that they focus, as the NTSB does, on preventing future attacks.
We recognize the importance of protecting the integrity of criminal investigations and ensuring due process for suspects brought to trial. This can be managed with a parallel effort focused on lessons learned. But especially where the active shooter has been killed, as often happens, the need to prevent further mass shootings needs to be given much greater priority and urgency.
There is also a need for objectivity, independence and integrity to the process. Many recommendations about how to prevent active shooters are going to be controversial. Rather than shy away from such controversy, an NTSB-like approach to prevent mass shootings needs to include recommendations backed up by diligent, thorough investigative work and the evidence that law enforcement already collects. While the initial standing group could be established by executive order, the administration should seek statutory authorization from Congress when conditions allow.
The way the grocery shoppers in Buffalo and the schoolchildren in Uvalde died is heartbreaking. One of the strengths of the NTSB approach is that it gives some small measure of meaning after terrible loss of life. The NTSB represents a promise to relatives and survivors that their losses will drive measures to prevent future accidents.
The Biden administration can set up by executive order a body of empowered, resourced expert investigators to report publicly after each mass shooting what could have prevented or disrupted the attack or increased the number of survivors. Over time, these reports will support other efforts to reduce the number of children and adults killed in grocery stores and schools. We owe this to the families of those killed in Buffalo and Uvalde — and to ourselves.
Thomas Warrick is director of the Future of DHS Project at the Atlantic Council and a former Department of Homeland Security deputy counterterrorism coordinator for policy. Javed Ali is associate professor of practice at the University of Michigan and served in senior roles at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Council.