While a gunman was in the adjacent classrooms with children at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday, a group of 19 law enforcement officers stood in an outside hallway and took no action while waiting for room keys and the tactical team, a state official has revealed.
“The commander at the scene at the time believed he had gone from an active shooter to a barricaded subject,” Texas Department of Homeland Security Steven McCraw (local time) said Friday.
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At the same time, however, children in classrooms 111 and 112 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde repeatedly called 911 and called for help, he said.
They were in the middle of the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre.
“From the benefit of the retrospective where I’m sitting now, of course, it wasn’t the right decision,” McCraw said of the supervisor’s call not to face the shooter.
“It was a wrong decision. Period. There is no excuse for that.”
In all, 80 minutes passed between the time officers were first called to school at 11:30 a.m. and when a tactical team entered the closed classrooms and killed the gunman at 12:50 p.m. , said McCraw.
A memorial to the victims of Tuesday’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. Credit: Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images
The tactical team was able to enter with the keys of a concierge, he added.
During this period, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos killed 19 children and two teachers, marking at least the 30th shooting at a K-12 school in 2022.
And while, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said, the massacre could have been worse, law enforcement response suggests it could have been better.
The delayed response is contrary to the commonly taught active shooter protocol, established after the 1999 Columbine School shooting, to stop the shooter as quickly as possible and even avoid helping the injured.
Steven C McCraw, director and colonel of the Texas Department of Public Safety, speaks during a press conference on the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. Credit: Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images
The revelations also help explain why officials have offered conflicting information over the past three days about what law enforcement did in response.
“The levels of failure are incredible, beyond belief,” said Anthony Barksdale, the former Baltimore acting police commissioner.
Alfred Garza, the father of Amerie Jo Garza, 10, who died in the attack, said he believed someone should be responsible for the delayed response.
“They should have reacted faster, faster,” he said.
“Had they done that? You know, we might have a different outcome. “
McCraw also revealed more details about how the gunman was able to enter the school without hindrance.
The suspect, Ramos, first shot his grandmother at her home, grabbed her truck and crashed into a ditch near the school at 11:28 p.m.
He got out of the vehicle with a long rifle and ammunition and shot two men across the street and lost them, McCraw said.
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A school teacher who had opened a back door closed a minute earlier saw the crash and the gunman and went to call 911, leaving the door propped up. The 911 call arrived at 11:30 a.m.
The gunman walked into the school parking lot and started firing at the classroom windows, McCraw said.
A school resources officer, who was not on campus at the time, overheard the 911 call and rushed to the school, but passed the suspect, who was sunk behind a vehicle, he said. McCraw.
The suspect entered the school through the slammed door at 11:33 a.m. and went to adjoining classrooms 111 and 112, where he continued firing, McCraw said.
Teachers Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles were killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary. Credit: Shooting at Supplied Victims of Texas School. Credit: Facebook
Two minutes later, seven officers arrived at the school and approached the closed classrooms where the gunman had barricaded himself.
Two of the officers were shot by the suspect from behind the door and injured, McCraw said.
The gunman fired 16 more dances inside the closed classrooms between 11:37 a.m. and 11:44 a.m., and more officers continued to arrive in the hallway, McCraw said.
About the same time, Robb Elementary School posted on its Facebook page that the school was closed due to gunfire in the area.
Salvador Rolando Ramos killed 19 children and two teachers in the Texas Elementary School massacre. Credit: Facebook / supplied
Outside the school, desperate, desperate parents soon began to arrive to find out if their children were still alive, prompting clashes with police trying to establish a perimeter.
Inside the school, there were up to 19 police officers in the hallway at 12:03 p.m., but they stayed outside and waited for more equipment and tactical equipment, McGraw said.
That same minute, at 12:03 p.m., police received a 911 call from a girl who identified herself and whispered that she was in room 112, McCraw said.
He stayed on the phone for a minute and 23 seconds. At 12:10 p.m., he called and said several people were dead. He called again three minutes later.
Members of the Border Patrol tactical team, known as BORTAC, arrived with shields at 12:15 p.m. There they waited.
You ask for help
The girl called back at 12.16pm and said there were eight to nine students alive, McGraw said. Another student called 911 from Classroom 111 three minutes later, but hung up at the urging of another student. On a 911 call at 12:21 p.m., three shots could be heard, he said.
The gunman had fired more than 100 rounds in the first minutes of the shooting, but subsequent shots were sporadic and aimed at the door, McCraw said.
“The belief was that perhaps no one was alive anymore and that the subject has now tried to keep law enforcement at bay or incite them to commit suicide,” he said.
A student called 911 at 12:36 p.m. The call lasted 21 seconds, but then he called and was told to stay online and shut up. At 12.43 and 12.47 he asked 911 to send the police now.
Finally, at 12:50 p.m., the tactical team entered the room and fired and killed the suspect.
The shooting scene. Credit: ABC News
The children who survived the shooting described what happened at the school during the chaos.
To survive the nightmare, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo smeared blood on her friend and killed herself, she told CNN.
Miah and her classmates were watching the movie “Lilo and Stitch” when teachers Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia learned that there was a shooter in the building. A teacher went to close the door, but the shooter was right there and shot through the door window, Miah said.
As her teacher returned to the classroom, the gunman followed her. Then he looked a teacher in the eye, said “Good night,” and shot her, the girl recalled.
And then he opened fire, shooting the other teacher and many of Miah’s friends. The bullets flew next to her, Miah said, and the fragments hit her shoulders and head.
The gunman then entered through a door into an adjoining classroom. Miah heard screams and more shots. When the shooting stopped, the shooter started playing music that was “sad, like you want people to die,” the girl said.
Fearing that she would return to kill her and her few surviving friends, Miah put her hands in the blood of a murdered friend lying beside her and smeared herself on it, she said. The girl and a friend managed to pick up the phone of a dead teacher and call 911 for help, he said.
She told a dispatcher, “Please send help because we are in trouble.”
Then the couple stretched out and became dead.
Another student in a different classroom, 10-year-old Jayden Perez, said that when he and his classmates heard gunshots, his teacher locked the door and told them to “hide and be quiet.” .
Jayden said he was hiding near the backpack storage area during the shooting. Others in his class were under a table. All the while, they wondered what would happen to them.
“It was very scary because I never thought this would happen,” he told CNN. “I’m still sad for some of my friends who died.”
Law enforcement personnel are in front of Robb Elementary School after the shooting. Credit: Dario Lopez-Mills / AP
Outside the school, chaos and confusion reigned when exhausted parents showed up and begged law enforcement to come in and kill the gunman. A father even asked officers to give him his equipment, he said.
“I myself told one of the officers that if they didn’t want to go in, let them lend me their weapon and a vest and I’ll go in myself to handle it. And they told me no,” Victor Luna said. on CNN.
Her son survived.
Instead, officers kept the parents behind a yellow police tape, refusing to let them in as they cried and screams resounded around them, several videos show.
In a video you can see members of the U.S. Marshals Service slowing down parents who begged to enter the school.
U.S. Marshals said in a statement that they were called to school at 11:30 a.m. and arrived about 40 minutes later from Del Rio, about 112 miles away.
The first deputy U.S. Marshal to arrive entered the school to assist the Border Patrol tactical team that was already involved with the shooter. Deputies also provided assistance to the victims. Other lawmakers were asked to secure the perimeter around the school, but never arrested or handcuffed anyone, the agency said.
“Our deputy marshals maintained order and peace amid the community affected by the pain that was gathering around the school,” the agency said.
Uvalde police chief Daniel Rodriguez issued a statement on Thursday defending his officers’ response to the shooting amid growing criticism.
“It’s important for our community to know that our agents responded in minutes” next to the school …