joining me now here in uvalde, texas is tony plohetski, he's an investigative reporter for the austin american-statesman, you and i have unfortunately aside history, you and i met in texas is at the scene of another mass killing, it was at a church. it happens, and we have thoughts and prayers, and we have calls to do something. more often than not, we will talk about examples where change does come, but more often than not it doesn't come. what's happening in the state? , what's the discussion that's happening about these killings? >> i think we just saw how high the temperature is, with beto o'rourke, a gubernatorial candidate, walking up to the stage during the governor's news conference today, and saying that essentially he has blood on his hands. it was an extraordinary moment between the sitting governor of the state of texas, and a gubernatorial candidate. >> and he got escorted out? >> yes, after some tense words were engaged by officials on the stage, and beto on the floor. i think across the state of texas, people are having the same conversation that, frankly, they have don

tony plohetski is an investigative reporter at the austin american-statesman. he spent the last week on the ground reporting in uvalde. tony, thank you for being back on the newshour. you spent a week there amidst this community that has obviously been upended by this tragedy. can you give us a sense of what you've heard from people? how are they coping with all of this? tony: based on the array of people i talked to, i think people are processing this differently depending on who they are. i can tell you with certainty that there was overwhelming shock tuesday in the immediate hours after this happened into wednesday. but as the week wore on and people were getting a confusing message from law enforcement, a confusing timeline, a lot of the shock really then turned to anger and of course sadness. but then, when we learned the really wrenching the details about the law enforcement response later in the week, the anger was almost unfathomable for these people and the fact they were being put out by the top law enforcement officer in the state really compounded th

. >> joining me now tony plohetski for an investigative reporter for the austin statesman and former i countered the fence intelligence, frank figliuzzi, and nbc nbc analyst and author. tony, tell us about the explanation the officers offered for the hour-long delay in breaching the door. >> and law enforcement official officially said that this was a bad call, that the commander on scene who was the chief of police for uvalde this derek treated this like a barricade suspect, someone who was holed up in a building instead of an active shooter. apparently at that time, authorities were trying to assemble and stand up a swat team to go in and take the shooter down. possibly, even have a sore undergo she asian with them. when, in fact, we now know that during that time, students themselves, as well as teachers, we're calling 9-1-1 asking that the police come in and save them. >> frank, msnbc has learned that the chief has attended an active shooting trading as recently as december. it is a question of protocol or training, will go through your mind as all this begins to service? >> there

joining me now, investigative reporter for the austin american-statesman, tony plohetski, and retiredment. tony, what kind of questions can the doj answer and why haven't we heard much from the local officials here these past two days? >> in fact, we've heard questions little from the local officials and we have been reaching out to them of course and one of the key people we want to talk to is the chief of the independent school district police force who we understand once the person calling the shot that they. one of the things and we are still trying to unpack exactly with this federal inquiry will include, but according to a news release that the doj issued around noon central time today is that it's going to be looking at best practices and lessons learned for the future so that that could be incorporated into training for law enforcement across the country. there does not appear to be a criminal investigation by the doj at this time, although it's certainly possible that if they were to uncover information that they believe could rise to the level of federal charges, they could