A “negotiator” tried in vain to contact the shooter at the school in Uvalde, Texas, while police were waiting to get the gunman out and the terrified children called 911 for help, he said. mayor of the city.
Mayor Don McLaughlin said he was standing next to the unidentified negotiator at Hillcrest Funeral Home near Robb Elementary School, where 18-year-old Salvador Ramos killed 19 children and two teachers last Tuesday.
“His main goal was to try to call that person on the phone,” McLaughlin said in a joint interview Wednesday with Telemundo San Antonio and the Washington Post.
“They tried all the numbers they found,” but Ramos did not respond, the Washington Post reported.
The mayor said he was unaware of the terrible 911 calls coming from children inside two connected classrooms where the carnage took place, with one person allegedly asking an emergency dispatcher to “please send the police now! “
McLaughlin said he also did not believe the negotiator knew about those calls.
The head of the Texas Department of Homeland Security said Pete Arredondo made the “wrong decision” to treat the confrontation as a “suspected barricade.”
The latest revelation comes as local law enforcement faces growing scrutiny over how they handled the response to the shooting, which unfolded for more than an hour. The gunman shot his grandmother at her home and then crashed her van into a ditch near the school shortly before 11:30 p.m.
The latest in a Texas school shooting
The gunman entered the school at 11:33 a.m. but was not killed until 12:50 p.m., when a tactical unit arrived and unlocked a door to the interconnected classrooms, officials said. Pete Arredondo, head of the Uvalde School District Police Department, faces questions about why he decided to wait to break down the door even though the first officers entered the building minutes after Ramos.
Nineteen children and two teachers were killed last Tuesday. Facebook / Joe Paul Ortega
The head of the Texas Department of Homeland Security said Arredondo made the “wrong decision” to treat the confrontation as a “suspected barricade” rather than a crisis of active shooters. Law enforcement is trying to confront a gunman as soon as possible during an active shooter situation, according to officials.
As questions grow about why cops stepped back while people were still alive in classrooms, Arredondo has tried to stay out of public attention. The mayor said Monday he had not spoken to Arredondo, the Post reported.
McLaughlin, a Republican in favor of expanding background checks, also revealed that Robb’s students would be enrolled in other schools.
The gunman entered the school at 11:33 a.m. but was not killed until 12:50 p.m. REUTERS / Marco Bello
“I hope we throw him to the ground,” he said in the interview. “I would never expect a teacher, a student, anyone to walk into that building again.”