Retired police chief living in Naples helps investigate Uvalde shooting

The U.S. Department of Justice has tapped a retired police chief living in Naples to help investigate the law enforcement response during the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in May.

Kristen Ziman got the call from the DOJ just last week. She is one of nine experts enlisted to mount this investigation, and Ziman tells WINK News they have already gotten to work on it.

Ziman brings with her considerable experience in dealing with a mass shooting and its aftermath: Though she now calls Naples home, Ziman was the police chief in Aurora, Illinois, in 2019, when a gunman shot and killed five people inside the Henry Pratt company building. Five of her officers were shot that day and survived, and Ziman praised her officers for running right toward the danger.

There are reports that law enforcement officers in Uvalde waited more than an hour in the school hallway before going into the classroom where an 18-year-old gunman shot and killed 19 students and two teachers. Ziman hesitates to make any declarations on their conduct just yet.

“What’s come out has been very inconsistent,” Ziman said. “There are a lot of fingers pointing in different directions and that’s precisely why we’ve been called here to do this work.”

Ziman says she wants to look at all the evidence first. She says they’ll be doing interviews in Uvalde, looking over documents and video evidence, and doing anything else they can to get to the truth of what happened. That way, people can be held accountable and law enforcement can do better to respond to any future mass shootings.