A boy shouted, “I’ve been shot,” drawing the gunman’s attention. He went back to where the boy was lying and shot the student again, killing him, Khloie said.
Chief Arredondo arrived at 11:35 a.m., when the first officers began moving into the hallway outside the classroom door. Two minutes later, a lieutenant and a sergeant from the Uvalde Police approached the door and were shot.
Shortly afterwards, Chief Arredondo made a phone call from the scene and reached a landline of the police department. He described the situation and requested a radio, a rifle and a contingent of heavily armed agents, according to the head of the order aware of the initial response, who described it on condition of anonymity because the officer was not authorized to publicly disclose the details.
The decision to set a perimeter outside the classroom, just over five minutes after the shooting began, changed the police response to one in which all officers would try to confront the gunman as quickly as possible. to one in which officers treated the gunman as a barricade and he no longer kills. Instead of assaulting the classroom, the decision was made to deploy a negotiator and muster a more heavily armed and armored tactical entry force.
“They made a bad decision, calling it a hostage barricade situation,” said Bill Francis, a former FBI agent who was the main leader of the office’s hostage rescue team. for 17 years. “The longer it takes to find and eliminate this threat, the longer it will take to continue killing other victims.”
Inside, the gunman moved between the two adjoining classrooms. When he left his room, Khloie said, he shouted quietly, “Is anyone okay? Is anyone hurt?”
“Yes,” a classmate replied.
“Just shut up, so you don’t come back here,” Khloie recalled answering. Another boy called for help to remove Mrs. Garcia’s body.