Texas’ Director General of Public Safety wept as he said that the 19 police officers who stood outside the classroom in which the shooter in Tuesday’s attack had left his victims were trapped, did not do anything since they believed everyone was dead despite constant 911 calls from the inside.
Col. Steven McCraw admitted the truth at Friday’s press conference. He said that it was the wrong decision and it came from Pete Arredondo, Chief of Uvalde School District Police Department. Arredondo incorrectly believed all the children in the class had been murdered.
According to police, they believed that each shot fired by the gunman after that had been directed at the door. This was in order to protect them.
“The incident commander believed that there were no additional children in danger at the time. He said, “Obviously there were some children who were at danger.”
The number of children killed by the 19 officers outside the school’s doors is unknown. McCraw revealed the following at the press conference:
- Within seconds of entering the school, the gunman opened fire with more than 100 bullets.
- He’d bought 1,000 rounds of ammunition and talked about purchasing guns for many months.
- His sister asked him to buy a gun for him in March. He ‘flatly rejected’ her offer, though it is not clear if this was reported.
- In May, he shared his thoughts on school shootings on Instagram with his friends. On May 14, he posted: “10 more days, and you’ll be seeing”
- It’s not clear if the final shots of the shooter were directed at children or to the front door.
- In the time that the children were locked in their classrooms, seven 911 calls were made by them to ask for help.
- Although there was not a resource officer on the scene, one arrived in the nick of time after receiving the 911 call. The gunman was not visible by him, so he drove past him.
- Because a teacher opened a door, the gunman could get in to the school.
Ramos entered the classroom, and locked the doors at 11.34 AM. Ramos fired over 100 rounds into classrooms 1 and 111 within the first minutes.
He continued shooting “sporadically” until 12.21pm. It wasn’t until 12.50pm when police finally gained entry to the classrooms using a key provided by the janitor.
“With the benefit to hindsight, I can see that it wasn’t the right decision. It was the wrong choice. McCraw declared, “There is no excuse.”
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These heartbreaking photos capture children fleeing Robb Elementary School in the aftermath of Tuesday’s shooting. The time the images of such horror were taken is not clear. The images depict cops pulling children through broken windows.
After being released from a classroom through the window, U.S. Border Patrol agents rushed Robb Elementary School children to safety.
Fearful children race to safety following Tuesday’s school shooting incident in Uvalde Texas.
Col. Steven McCraw wept when he said it was the “clearly the wrong choice”. It is not known if victims died before or after the arrival of police at the scene.
As he revealed that he, along with other police officers, ‘taken an oath [to protect people]”, he bowed.
He stated, “We want to understand why it happened and how we can improve next time.”
Uvalde Consolidated independent school district Chief Pete Arredondo was in command and thought that there were only two other students in the room when the shooter entered.
Arredondo decided not to move forward because he felt all of the children were dead. However, Arredondo wasn’t there to answer any questions.
According to police reports, the shooter did not engage in a shootout.
A school resource officer, who happened to be nearby and received the initial 911 call regarding the gunman’s crash of his truck, quickly rushed to the spot.
However, they drove straight past the gunman as he was hiding between the cars in the lot.
Instead of confronting the teacher at the back, the school resource officers went into the building to confront him.
Salvador Ramos, meanwhile, began moving on the school. He started shooting at classrooms.
He then entered through the unlocked front door, which was open because a teacher went to get their phones a few minutes earlier.
While the officers waited inside, he was firing shots. Meanwhile, parents were placed in handcuffs and prevented from entering school.
Now, the police are investigating.
The astonishing remarks were made by Chris Olivarez, Department of Safety Lieutenant, during a CNN appearance last night.
Wolf Blitzer challenged him about why Salvador Ramos had shot at the officers with his AR-15. After that, he waited over an hour for SWAT tactical teams to arrive to rescue him.
‘Don’t current best practices, Lieutenant, call for officers to disable a shooter as quickly as possible, regardless of how many officers are actually on site?’ Blitzer asked.
He responded, “In active shooter situations, you not only want to end the killing but also want to save lives.” The American public must also understand that this is a building that has officers. They are not sure where the gunman is. They can hear the gunshots. They’re hearing gunshots.
The gunman was then seen trying to claim credit by being kept in the classroom for one hour with all the children – some of whom he had shot shortly before the rampage began – and that it saved lives.
The initial police statement stated that the gunman was inside the classroom, but they were unable to get in. A second anonymous law official said that SWAT teams needed to wait for another member of school staff to give them access keys to the room.
‘At that point, if they proceeded any further not knowing where the suspect was at, they could’ve been shot, they could’ve been killed, and at that point that gunman would have had an opportunity to kill other people inside that school.
“So, they were able… to contain the gunman in that classroom so that that he could not go to any other parts of school to commit other killings,” Lt. Olivarez stated.
After hearing the scanners’ footage, hundreds of Border Patrol agents rushed to the spot. A law enforcement official speaking anonymously to The New York Times said that when the agents arrived at Uvalde Police Department, they were also instructed not to enter.
The agents eventually joined their parents and some local officers to pull the children through classroom windows.
They didn’t get why agents were told to stay out of the way when the gunman still occupied the building.
Experts have condemned the move to delay for back up, calling it ‘disgusting and outdated’.
“Waiting one hour for something to happen is terrible.” Sean Burke from Massachusetts, a former school resource officer who is now president of School Safety Advocacy Council said that if it turns out to true then that is a disgusting truth.
‘If you’ve got somebody you think is actively engaged in harming people or attempting to harm people, your obligation as a police officer is to immediately stop that person and neutralize that threat.
‘We don’t expect police officers to commit suicide in doing it.
‘But the expectation is that if someone is about to harm someone, especially children, you’ve got to take immediate action to make that stop,’ Don Alwes, an ex-instructor for the National Tactical Officers Association, added.
The hospital’s surgeons in Uvalde suggested that some children may have lost their lives because they were not able to respond quickly enough.
The exact number of children in the class room at the time the gunman opened fire is not known. It’s also unclear how many died immediately.
Two children died at Uvalde Memorial Hospital.
Physicians now emphasize the importance to immediately treat any gunshot injuries.
“You cannot wait for patients to go to trauma centers.
US Border Patrol agents responded to the shooting, however they were stopped by the local police when they reached the spot.
From the moment Ramos shot his grandmother, it took nearly two hours for the shooting to unfold. At 11.28am, he arrived at school and made the first 911 call. Then, he walked into the school unimpeded with his AR-15. He headed toward the classroom. After he was defeated by cops at 11.44am, he continued to the classroom with his AR-15 and remained alone until 12:44pm when SWAT entered the building. At 1.06pm the incident was over.
Ronald Stewart, a senior trauma surgeon at University Hospital of Antonio said, “You must act quickly.”
Uncontrolled bleeding is the leading cause of death among victims of gunshot wounds, and it can occur in just five minutes.
Officers across the country have been told not to wait to get backup, but to go into schools to locate the shooter since the Columbine massacre in 1999.
According to the Texas Police Chiefs Association, the first two-five responding officers must form one team before they can enter the structure.
One of the many factors that led to Uvalde’s slow response is why that was ignored. This investigation has been completed.
Another reason why the police claimed that the shooter was in an altercation with a school resource officer prior to making it into the classroom is because they falsely believed that he had already exchanged fire with him.
On Thursday night, Olivarez said that was the information police received.
Texas cops hold down one parent at Robb Elementary School while an inside shooting takes place
She explained that she was not hurt, and that the blood came from Amerie, her best friend. Angel Garza (above), realized then that the blood he was viewing was actually his daughter
‘So that’s information that we received early on in this investigation.
“The Texas Rangers have now conducted interviews with the officers in order to find out their exact role. This will allow us to create a more concrete and factual timeline,” he stated.
Parents who had their children pepper sprayed or pinned down to the ground, and were even put in handcuffs are expressing frustration and anger.
Angeli Rose Gomez: “The police did nothing,” The Wall Street Journal.
“They stood outside the fence.” They didn’t run anywhere or went in the fence.
Gomez is the mother to two third-graders. She drove 40 miles from her home in the wake of hearing about the attack.
It was she who encouraged the police to rush into the school, as were many other desperate parents.
Eventually, According to the Wall Street Journal, federal marshals placed Gomez under arrest and put her in handcuffs.
Gomez claimed that she managed to persuade a Uvalde officer she knew to free her. She then ran into the school to rescue her children.
She said that other parents also trying to get to their kids were tackled and even pepper-sprayed by police.
Angel Garza was also a victim of the attack. He tried to escape from school but was stopped by police when he learned that Amerie, a girl he called Amerie, had been killed.
Anderson Cooper was later hearing Garza’s heartbreaking tale.
Because he was a qualified medic, he explained to the girl that he had tried to save her from bloody injuries when he first arrived at the scene.
She explained that she was not hurt, and that the blood came from Amerie, her best friend.
Angel saw that his blood was from his own child. Later, he discovered that his daughter was one of the victims.