The commander’s decision to delay the rape of a Texas elementary school classroom during this week’s mass shooting was the “wrong decision,” authorities said Friday. Nearly 20 officers were left in a hallway outside the classrooms during the robbery at Robb Elementary School for more than 45 minutes before officers used a master key to open a door and confront the gunman. , Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement. conference.
The on-site commander, the school district’s chief of police, believed Salvador Ramos, 18, was barricaded in a classroom in Uvalde during Tuesday’s attack and that the children were not at risk, McCraw said. .
“At the time, I was convinced that there was no more threat to the children and that the subject was barricaded and that they had time to get organized” to enter the classroom, McCraw said.
“Of course it wasn’t the right decision. It was the wrong decision,” he said.
Officers at the scene of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022. Pete Luna / Uvalde Leader-News
Friday’s briefing took place after authorities spent three days providing often contradictory and incomplete information about the 90 minutes that elapsed between the time the gunman entered the school and the time the police officers entered the school. U.S. Border Patrol unlocked the classroom door and killed him. The gunman killed 19 students and two teachers during the attack.
McCraw said there was a rain of gunfire shortly after the gunman entered the classroom where he was killed, but that the shots were “sporadic” for much of the 48 minutes as officers waited outside the hallway. . He said investigators do not know if or how many children died during those 48 minutes.
During the attack, teachers and children repeatedly called 911 for help, including a girl who begged, “Please send the police now,” McCraw said.
Contrary to previous statements by officials, a school district police officer was not inside the school when the gunman arrived. When the officer responded, unknowingly, he passed the gunman, who was crouching behind a car parked outside and firing at the building, McCraw said.
The motive for the massacre, the deadliest school shooting in the country from Newtown, Connecticut, nearly a decade ago, remained under investigation, and authorities said the gunman had no known criminal or mental health record.
Children flee the shooting scene at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, 2022. Pete Luna / Uvalde Leader-News