The police response to the irruption of a gunman into a school in Uvalde, where he killed 19 children and two teachers on May 24, was an “absolute failure”, the agents having notably waited for a key which was not “ not necessary,” a Texas public safety official lambasted on Tuesday.
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“We know one thing: there is compelling evidence that law enforcement’s response to the attack on Robb Elementary School was an utter failure and goes against everything we have learned in the past. two decades since the Columbine massacre” at a high school in 1999, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw told a state Senate investigative committee.
The time it took for police – over an hour – to enter the classroom and kill the 18-year-old gunman has come under heavy criticism since the killings, and Mr McCraw drove home the point during this televised hearing.
“Three minutes after the individual entered the west building, there were a sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate, distract and incapacitate him,” he said. .
“The only thing that kept a group of dedicated officers from entering rooms 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander’s decision to put the lives of the officers before the lives of the children,” he said. he continued, targeting one of the police chiefs on the scene, Pete Arredondo.
“The officers had weapons, the children did not. The officers had bulletproof vests, the children did not. The agents were trained, not the shooter,” he added.
Pete Arredondo had assured that the locked door of the classroom had delayed the intervention, an explanation questioned by Steven McCraw.
“He waited for a key that was never needed,” he said.
This official had already expressed a mea culpa in the days following the killing, believing that the agents should have intervened more quickly.