During the one hour and 17 minutes that elapsed Tuesday between the time the teen shooter entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and police officers breached a classroom door and killed him, teachers and children huddled inside made desperate phone calls to police, begging for someone to come save them.
The decision by the on-scene commander to wait – having declared an active shooter situation had become a “barricaded suspect” situation – was the “wrong decision,” acknowledged Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, in a briefing Friday.
McCraw disclosed that there were “plenty of officers” available on the scene “to do whatever needed to be done.”
“With the benefit of hindsight, where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision, it was the wrong decision, period,” McCraw said.
“There was no excuse for that.”
The commander on the scene Tuesday was Uvalde, Texas, school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo.
McCraw said Arredondo mistakenly believed it had become a barricade or hostage situation, that “they had time, and there were no kids at risk.”
“There were 19 officers in there,” McCraw said. “In fact, there were plenty of officers to do whatever needed to be done, with one exception — the incident commander inside believed they needed more equipment and more officers to do a tactical breach at that point.”
McCraw disclosed that the shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, entered the building at 11:33 a.m. on Tuesday through a door that had been propped open by a teacher and walked into Room 111 then into a connecting room, 112, where he fired off at least 100 rounds.
Ramos killed 19 students and two teachers.
‘Please send police now!’
Police said there was a series of 911 calls, including from a teacher and two students who were were inside the building with the shooter.
One child begged a 911 dispatcher, “Please send police now!”
Authorities believed the killing had stopped at the time of the calls, but the teacher who spoke with the 911 dispatcher later became one of the victims.
The two children who placed the calls survived, authorities said.
Texas officials said Ramos was killed by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection tactical unit armed with ballistic shields at 12:50 p.m.
Officers had to get a key from a school janitor after the shooter locked the doors to the two connected classrooms.I
‘I’ll go in without a vest – I will’
At the briefing Friday, McCraw said the reports that the shooter posted his plan on Facebook was false. However, Ramos did communicate with a Facebook user in private messages.
And in an Instagram group chat Feb. 28, 2022, he talked about becoming a school shooter. In a March 14 message, he wrote “10 more days.” A user replied “are you gonna shoot up the school or something?”
Authorities said Ramos replied: No, stop asking dumb questions” and “you’ll see.”
Videos posted on Twitter show parents outside the school pleading with officers to go inside. Officers are seen holding one parent down and shoving another.
“They’re little kids, they don’t know how to defend themselves,” said one, “6-year-old kids in there, they don’t know how to defend themselves from a shooter!”
One mother is heard telling officers: “You’re scared of getting shot? I’ll go in without a vest – I will!”
See video of angry parents outside the school Tuesday:
*BREAKING* Robb Elementary School shooting. Uvalde Texas. This video shows the chaos outside of the school where parents were trying to find their children.#Uvalde #RobbElementary #SchoolShooting pic.twitter.com/yx97i6Bh9w
— TheFamily’sSoup TV (@FamilysSoupTV) May 25, 2022
See the press conference Friday:
For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!
If you like WND, get the news that matters most delivered directly to your inbox – for FREE!
Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].
SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!
This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
This post originally appeared on WND News Center.