Texas police say ‘wrong decision’ to not break into Uvalde classroom sooner

Uvalde: Texas police officials have acknowledged that “it was the wrong decision” for officers to not try to break into an elementary school classroom where a gunman was killing students and teachers.

Nearly 20 officers stood for about 45 minutes in the hallway outside the adjoining classrooms at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde where 18-year-old Salvador Ramos shot and killed 19 students and two teachers before US Border Patrol agents unlocked the door to confront and kill him, authorities said on Friday (Saturday AEST).

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw revealed new details.Credit:AP Photo/Wong Maye-E

At least some of the 911 calls made during the mass shooting on Tuesday came from inside the connected classrooms where Ramos was holed up, Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a press conference where he released new details.

“It was the wrong decision,” McCraw conceded.

“The on-scene commander at the time believed it had transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject,” he said, adding the commander thought “there were no children at risk”.

“Obviously, based upon the information we [now] have, there were children in that classroom at risk.”

The Border Patrol agents eventually used a master key to open the locked door of the classroom where they confronted and killed Ramos, he said.

There was a barrage of gunfire shortly after Ramos entered the classroom where officers eventually killed him, but that shots were “sporadic” for much of the 48 minutes when officers waited in the hallway, McCraw said. He said investigators do not know if or how many children died during that time.

Throughout the attack, teachers and children repeatedly called 911 asking for help, including a girl who pleaded: “Please send the police now,” McCraw said.

Questions have mounted over the amount of time it took officers to enter the school to confront the gunman.

A child looks at a memorial site for the victims killed in this week’s shooting at Robb Elementary School.Credit:AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills

Ramos’ rampage

It was 11.30am on Tuesday, Texas time, when Ramos’ 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, Ramos entered the school and found his way to the fourth-grade classroom where he killed the 21 victims.

But it wasn’t until 12.58pm that law enforcement radio chatter said Ramos had been killed and the siege was over.

What happened in those 90 minutes, in a working-class neighbourhood near the edge of the town of Uvalde, has fuelled 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.”

Friday’s briefing came only after authorities spent three days providing often conflicting and incomplete information.

According to the new timeline provided by McCraw, After crashing his truck, Ramos fired on two people coming out of a nearby funeral home, officials said.

Law enforcement personnel stand outside Robb Elementary School following the shooting.Credit:AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills

Contrary to earlier statements by officials, a school district police officer was not inside the school when Ramos arrived. When that officer did respond, he unknowingly drove past Ramos, who was crouched behind a car parked outside and firing at the building, McCraw said.

At 11.33pm, Ramos entered the school through a rear door that had been propped open and fired more than 100 rounds into a pair of classrooms, McCraw said.

Department of Public Safety spokesman Travis Considine said investigators haven’t yet determined why the door was propped open.

Two minutes later, three local police officers arrived and entered the building through the same door, followed soon after by four others, McCraw said. Within 15 minutes, as many as 19 officers from different agencies had assembled in the hallway, taking sporadic fire from Ramos, who was holed up in a classroom.

Ramos was still inside at 12.10pm when the first US Marshals Service deputies arrived. They had raced to the school from nearly 113 kilometres away in the border town of Del Rio, the agency said in a tweet.

But the police commander inside the building decided the group should wait to confront the gunman, on the belief that the scene was no longer an active attack, McCraw said.

The crisis came to an end after a group of Border Patrol tactical officers entered the school at 12.45pm, 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 pm, he was dead.

Timeline raises more questions

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 neutralise that shooter,” he said.

The motive for the massacre 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.”

Shooter’s parents respond

The gunman’s father, also named Salvador Ramos, 42, expressed remorse for his son’s actions in an interview with The Daily Beast.

“I just want the people to know I’m sorry, man, (for) what my son did,” the elder Ramos said. “He should’ve just killed me, you know, instead of doing something like that to someone.”

Ramos’ mother told CNN affiliate Televisa that she had no explanation for Ramos’ attack.

“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Adriana Martinez said. “He had his reasons for doing what he did and please don’t judge him. I only want the innocent children who died to forgive me.”

AP, Reuters

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