People
mourn in
front of
memorial
crosses
for the
victims
of the
mass
shooting
that
resulted
in the
death of
19
children,
and two
teachers
in front
of Robb
Elementary
School
in
Uvalde,
Texas,
U.S. May
26,
2022.
(REUTERS/Veronica
G.
Cardenas) |
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Avideo
circulating
on
social
media
appeared
to show
officers
stopping
parents
from
rushing
into the
elementary
school
where a
gunman's
rampage
left 19
children
and two
teachers
dead at
Robb
Elementary
School
in
Uvalde.
(Twitter:
TheFamily'sSoup
TV) |
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Gunman's
final 90
minutes
fuel
questions
about
police
delays
By JAKE
BLEIBERG,
JIM
VERTUNO
and
ELLIOT
SPAGAT
apnews.com
UVALDE,
Texas -
It was
11:28
a.m.
when the
Ford
pickup
slammed
into a
ditch
behind
the
low-slung
Texas
school
and the
driver
jumped
out
carrying
an
AR-15-style
rifle.
Twelve
minutes
after
that,
authorities
say,
18-year-old
Salvador
Ramos
was in
the
hallways
of Robb
Elementary
School.
Soon he
entered
a
fourth-grade
classroom.
And
there,
he
killed
19
schoolchildren
and two
teachers
in a
still-unexplained
spasm of
violence.
At 12:58
p.m.,
law
enforcement
radio
chatter
said
Ramos
had been
killed
and the
siege
was
over.
What
happened
in those
90
minutes,
in a
working-class
neighborhood
near the
edge of
the
little
town of
Uvalde,
has
fueled
mounting
public
anger
and
scrutiny
over law
enforcement’s
response
to
Tuesday’s
rampage.
“They
say they
rushed
in,”
said
Javier
Cazares,
whose
fourth-grade
daughter,
Jacklyn
Cazares,
was
killed
in the
attack,
and who
raced to
the
school
as the
massacre
unfolded.
“We
didn’t
see
that.”
People
react
outside
the Ssgt
Willie
de Leon
Civic
Center,
where
students
had been
transported
from
Robb
Elementary
School
after a
shooting,
in
Uvalde,
Texas,
U.S. May
24,
2022.
(REUTERS/Marco
Bello)
On
Thursday,
authorities
largely
ignored
questions
about
why
officers
had not
been
able to
stop the
shooter
sooner,
with
Victor
Escalon,
regional
director
for the
Texas
Department
of
Public
Safety,
telling
reporters
he had
“taken
all
those
questions
into
consideration”
and
would
offer
updates
later.
The
media
briefing,
called
by Texas
safety
officials
to
clarify
the
timeline
of the
attack,
provided
bits of
previously
unknown
information.
But by
the time
it
ended,
it had
added to
the
troubling
questions
surrounding
the
attack,
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
the
school
when
Ramos
arrived,
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.
After
crashing
his
truck,
Ramos
fired on
two
people
coming
out of a
nearby
funeral
home,
Escalon
said. He
then
entered
the
school
”unobstructed”
through
an
apparently
unlocked
door at
about
11:40
a.m.
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 the
fourth-grade
classroom.
Moments
before 1
p.m., he
was
dead.
Escalon
said
that
during
that
time,
the
officers
called
for
backup,
negotiators
and
tactical
teams,
while
evacuating
students
and
teachers.
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
the
response
remained
murky.
The
motive
for the
massacre
— the
nation’s
deadliest
school
shooting
since
Newtown,
Connecticut,
almost a
decade
ago —
remained
under
investigation,
with
authorities
saying
Ramos
had no
known
criminal
or
mental
health
history.
During
the
siege,
frustrated
onlookers
urged
police
officers
to
charge
into the
school,
according
to
witnesses.
“Go in
there!
Go in
there!”
women
shouted
at the
officers
soon
after
the
attack
began,
said
Juan
Carranza,
24, who
watched
the
scene
from
outside
a house
across
the
street.
Carranza
said the
officers
should
have
entered
the
school
sooner:
“There
were
more of
them.
There
was just
one of
him.”
Border
Patrol
Chief
Raul
Ortiz
did not
give a
timeline
but said
repeatedly
that the
tactical
officers
from his
agency
who
arrived
at the
school
did not
hesitate.
He said
they
moved
rapidly
to enter
the
building,
lining
up in a
“stack”
behind
an agent
holding
up a
shield.
“What we
wanted
to make
sure is
to act
quickly,
act
swiftly,
and
that’s
exactly
what
those
agents
did,”
Ortiz
told Fox
News.
But a
law
enforcement
official
said
that
once in
the
building,
the
agents
had
trouble
breaching
the
classroom
door and
had to
get a
staff
member
to open
the room
with a
key. The
official
spoke on
condition
of
anonymity
because
he was
not
authorized
to talk
publicly
about
the
investigation.
Department
of
Public
Safety
spokesman
Lt.
Christopher
Olivarez
told CNN
that
investigators
were
trying
to
establish
whether
the
classroom
was, in
fact,
locked
or
barricaded
in some
way.
Cazares
said
that
when he
arrived,
he saw
two
officers
outside
the
school
and
about
five
others
escorting
students
out of
the
building.
But 15
or 20
minutes
passed
before
the
arrival
of
officers
with
shields,
equipped
to
confront
the
gunman,
he said.
As more
parents
flocked
to the
school,
he and
others
pressed
police
to act,
Cazares
said. He
heard
about
four
gunshots
before
he and
the
others
were
ordered
back to
a
parking
lot.
“A lot
of us
were
arguing
with the
police,
‘You all
need to
go in
there.
You all
need to
do your
jobs.’
Their
response
was, ‘We
can’t do
our jobs
because
you guys
are
interfering,’”
Cazares
said.
As for
the
armed
school
officer,
he was
driving
nearby
but was
not on
campus
when
Ramos
crashed
his
truck,
according
to a law
enforcement
official
who was
not
authorized
to
discuss
the case
and
spoke of
condition
of
anonymity.
Investigators
have
concluded
that
school
officer
was not
positioned
between
the
school
and
Ramos,
leaving
him
unable
to
confront
the
shooter
before
he
entered
the
building,
the law
enforcement
official
said.
Michael
Dorn,
executive
director
of Safe
Havens
International,
which
works to
make
schools
safer,
cautioned
that
it’s
hard to
get a
clear
understanding
of the
facts
soon
after a
shooting.
“The
information
we have
a couple
of weeks
after an
event is
usually
quite
different
than
what we
get in
the
first
day or
two. And
even
that is
usually
quite
inaccurate,”
Dorn
said.
For
catastrophic
events,
“you’re
usually
eight to
12
months
out
before
you
really
have a
decent
picture.”
___
Bleiberg
reported
from
Dallas.
___
More on
the
school
shooting
in
Uvalde,
Texas:
https://apnews.com
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