Police waited 80 minutes to invade room and stop Texas shooter

As a gunman was inside adjacent classrooms with children at Texas Elementary School on Tuesday, a group of 19 police officers stood in a hallway outside and did nothing as they waited for room keys and equipment. tactical, a state official said on Friday (27)

The commander at the scene in that situation believed the shooter was no longer active and was surrounded by barricades, explained Colonel Steven McCraw, head of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).

However, at the same time, children inside classrooms 111 and 112 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde repeatedly called 911 and begged for help. The massacre was the deadliest since Sandy Hook in 2012.

“For the benefit of hindsight from where I’m sitting now, it’s clear it wasn’t the right decision,” McCraw said of the supervisor’s request not to confront the shooter.

“It was the wrong decision. Full stop. There is no excuse for that,” the police chief declared.

In all, 80 minutes elapsed between when officers were called to the school at 11:30 am and when a tactical team entered the locked classrooms and killed the gunman at 12:50 pm.

The tactical team only managed to get in using the keys of a school janitor. During this period, Salvador Ramos, 18, killed 19 children and two teachers.

While, as Texas Governor Greg Abbott said, the massacre could have been worse, law enforcement response suggests it could have been better.

The delayed response is contrary to commonly taught active sniper protocol, established after the 1999 Columbine school shooting, to stop the sniper as quickly as possible and even avoid helping the wounded.

The revelations also help explain why authorities have offered contradictory information over the past three days about what police have done in response.

“The levels of failure are just incredible, unbelievable,” said Anthony Barksdale, former Baltimore Acting Police Commissioner.

Alfred Garza, father of 10-year-old Amerie Jo Garza, who was killed in the attack, said he believed someone should be held responsible for the late response. “They should have reacted faster, faster,” he said. “Did they do this? You know, maybe we would have a different result.”

“As you all know, the information they gave me turned out to be partly inaccurate, and I am absolutely furious about it,” he declared.

The governor was in Uvalde for a press conference on the state’s response to the families of those affected by the shooting, but reporters pressed Abbott about the police response and the information given to the public about the shooting.

“My expectation is that the law enforcement leaders who are leading the investigation…they get to the bottom of every fact with absolute certainty,” he said.

Abbott said the people most deserving of accurate answers are families whose “lives have been destroyed.”

“It is inexcusable that they may have suffered from any inaccurate information,” he said.