The police officers who entered the school three minutes after the shooter but did not approach him for more than an hour were backed by the mayor of Uvalde last night.
Speaking to people of Uvalde, Mayor Don McLaughlin asserted that Steve McCraw, director of the Department of Public Safety, had proceeded to “lie, leak, mislead, or misstate material” in order to defend his own troopers.
In the hallway leading up to the Robb Elementary School door breach, he claimed, “There were no fewer than eight law enforcement agencies present.”
Every time he gives a briefing, he omits how many of his own officers and rangers were present.
He omits the fact that, during this period, Border Patrol agents assisted by Uvalde peace police safely evacuated every other classroom in the building.
It happened shortly after the Uvalde City Council rejected Pete Arredondo’s request for a leave of absence, despite placing the blame at his door for the ineffective response to the shooting.
After the teen barricaded himself inside a packed fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary, Arredondo reportedly ordered police officers on the scene to remain where they were and avoid confronting gunman Salvadaor Ramos.
It comes as Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw stated Uvalde police had enough officers on the site of last month’s horrific shooting to halt the gunman in his tracks during a State Senate hearing yesterday.
It was only three minutes into the shooting that the gunman was stopped, according to McCraw, who called police’s response to the May 24 slaughter “an appalling failure.”
While reviewing the sequence of the sad events that day, McCraw told the committee that three minutes after the suspect entered the west hallway, there were enough armed cops wearing body armor to isolate and neutralize the subject.
The district head, according to McCraw, “chosen to place the lives of police before the lives of children,” in a scathing speech.
The on-scene commander, who chose to put the lives of cops over the lives of children, was the only thing preventing a corridor of committed officers from entering rooms 111 and 112, McCraw claimed.
“The toddlers had no weapons; the officers did.” The police had body armor, but the kids didn’t.
According to McCraw, “the law enforcement response to the Robb Elementary attack was an utter failure and contrary to everything we’ve learned over the last 20 years since the Columbine Massacre.”
The classroom door that Ramos had been hiding behind had not been locked, according to McCraw, contradicting prior claims from Arredondo’s department that the chief had been desperately looking for keys for more than an hour to open the fourth-grade classroom door.
The Statesman said that at the time, authorities denied that they thought the police had attempted to unlock the door.
According to information released by McCraw yesterday, the classroom doors ‘could not lock from the inside,’ and the cops did not attack the building purely out of concern for their own safety.
McCraw stated, “One hour, 14 minutes, and eight seconds.” “That is how long the teachers and children waited to be rescued.”
The on-scene commander waited for radios and guns, shields, and SWAT while they waited, McCraw continued.
And finally, he awaited a key that was never required.
Even if the door had been locked, the officers had the tools to unlock it, according to McCraw.
Officers heard gunshots, knew children had been wounded inside, and knew at least one teacher who had been shot was still alive while they waited an hour and 14 minutes to enter the classroom.
No one examined the classroom doors to determine if they were indeed unlocked as more police officers gathered in the hallway with guns and ballistic shields, the San Antonio Express-News reported last week.
The transcript of a phone call that day between Arredondo and a police dispatcher, in which the chief expressed concern that his men were outgunned—Ramos was carrying a rifle, while his cops were carrying only handguns—was posted online by McCraw.
The commander was criticized by McCraw for his reluctance, saying that putting one’s life in danger is a requirement of becoming a police officer. He said that every officer there, even just one, has a duty to “immediately engage the gunman.”
During the meeting of the Senate Special Committee to Protect All Texans, McCraw said, “He was right – cops are sure to get hurt, and some may die.” However, they are less likely to do so than kids who were abandoned with a person who ultimately killed 21 people and had any protective gear, weapons, or training.
That’s intolerable in a “active shooter setting,” McCraw argued.