‘They had no empathy’: for gun violence survivors, police response can be retraumatizing

To address this issue, some police departments have explored bringing social workers along to assist family members and explain officers' response

For Americans who have lost family members to gun violence, the scene outside Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, was all too familiar. The yellow caution tape. The distraught parents shouting at law enforcement officials and begging them for action or answers. And the officers' response: reports and footage of relatives being restrained and allegations that some parents were even handcuffed or tasered.

They had no empathy," Yvonne Trice, an activist from California whose son was killed in 2015, said of the police treatment of relatives in Uvalde.