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Questions about the role of the police present at Uvalde primary school, where a teenager killed nineteen children and two teachers on Tuesday, keep piling up. While families denounce the inaction of the police officers who were in front of the school, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steven McCraw, revealed on Friday, May 27, that agents had indeed entered the establishment as soon as 11:35 a.m., two minutes after the shooter entered it.
Shortly after noon, there were nineteen of them in the corridor outside the classroom where the shooter, Salvador Ramos, had locked himself up. They waited for more than forty-five minutes before Border Police forces entered the school and stormed, opening the door with just a key. The police took a “bad decision” admitted Mr. McCraw, when asked about this delay.
The commander believed that the shooter had barricaded himself in a room, that the children “were no longer in danger” and that the police “had time to get organized”he justified. “In hindsight, now of course it was not the right decision”he repeated, acknowledging that local agents like the border police, who finally stormed after 12.45 p.m., had been ordered not to intervene.
Pressed by reporters to explain, the official said law enforcement believed “that there were perhaps no more survivors”.
Several children called 911
During this press conference, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety nevertheless reported several calls for help made by children in the classroom with the shooter. The first 911 call was recorded at 12:03 p.m. As of 12:10 p.m., a child announced the death of several others. At 12:16 p.m., this same student reported that eight or nine children were alive. Half an hour later, another student begged to“send the police”.
Steven McCraw also told the press that the shots had been “sporadic” for most of the forty-eight minutes the officers waited outside the classroom. According to him, the investigators do not know if children were killed during this period, nor how many. The assailant fired more than 100 bullets during the shootout.
At least two of the children who called 911 survived, McCraw said. Authorities still do not know if the “eight or nine” children who were reported alive at 12:16 p.m. are among the nineteen victims.
These announcements follow three days of vague and contradictory statements from the authorities on the circumstances of the massacre that mourns Uvalde.
Border Police Chief Raul Ortiz assured Thursday that officers had no “no hesitation”. They moved quickly into position to enter the building, in a column of assault, behind an officer holding a shield. “They came up with a plan. They walked into the classroom and they found a solution as quickly as they could”he told CNN.
At another press conference on Friday afternoon, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he was ” lead into error ” on the police response with inaccurate initial information.
