US Police Scrutinized Over Poor Response in South Texas Elementary School Shooting
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - A gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at a South Texas elementary school walked unopposed onto school grounds, state law enforcement officials said Thursday and once he was inside, it took police an hour to stop him.
A media briefing called by Texas safety officials to clarify the timeline of the attack provided bits of previously unknown information, CBC reported.
By the time it ended, though, it had added to the troubling questions surrounding the attack in the town of Uvalde, including about the time it took police to reach the scene and confront the gunman, and the apparent failure to lock a school door he entered.
After two days of providing often conflicting information, investigators said that a school district police officer was not inside Robb Elementary when 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos arrived around 11:30 a.m. local time, and, contrary to their previous reports, the officer had not confronted Ramos outside the building.
Instead, they sketched out a timeline notable for unexplained delays by law enforcement in responding to the attack.
Ramos crashed his truck near the back of the school at 11:28 a.m., then fired an AR-style rifle at two people coming out of a nearby funeral home, said Victor Escalon, regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Ramos then entered the school "unobstructed" through an apparently unlocked door at about 11:40 a.m., Escalon said.
But the first police officers did not arrive on the scene until 12 minutes after the crash and did not enter the school to pursue the shooter until four minutes after that. Inside, they were driven back by gunfire from Ramos and took cover, Escalon said.
The crisis came to an end after a group of Border Patrol tactical officers entered the school roughly an hour later, at 12:45 p.m., said Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Travis Considine. They engaged in a shootout with the gunman, who was holed up in a fourth grade classroom. Radio chatter at 12:58 p.m. indicated that he was dead.
In the hour in between, the officers called for backup, negotiators and tactical teams, while evacuating students and teachers, Escalon said.
But he largely ignored questions about why officers were not able to stop the shooter sooner, saying he had "taken all those questions into consideration" and would offer updates.
Ken Trump, president of the consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services, said the length of the timeline raised questions.
"Based on best practices, it's very difficult to understand why there were any types of delays, particularly when you get into reports of 40 minutes and up of going in to neutralize that shooter," he said.
Many other details of the case and response remained murky. The motive for the massacre — the nation's deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., a decade ago — remains under investigation, with authorities saying the gunman had no known criminal or mental health history.
During the siege, frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the school, according to witnesses.
US President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will travel to Uvalde, Texas, on Sunday to console families and honour the victims of Tuesday's shooting.
The White House said the Bidens would "grieve with the community that lost 21 lives in the horrific" shooting at Robb Elementary School. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president would meet with the community, local religious leaders and the victims' families.
