Uwalde, Texas (AP) – Numerous police officers armed with rifles and at least one ballistic shield stood and waited in the school hallway for nearly an hour while a gunman massacred 19 elementary students and two teachers, according to Monday’s news report. the latest embarrassing revelation of law enforcement failure to thwart the attack.
Officers with heavier firepower and tactical equipment were there within 19 minutes of the shooter’s arrival on campus – earlier than previously known, according to documents reviewed by Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV.
However, the publication’s report, which does not specify the source of the documents, heightens the anguish and questions about why the police did not take action earlier to stop the May 24 massacre in Rob’s primary school classroom. T
The information is due to be presented to a public hearing in the Texas Senate in Austin on Tuesday. Investigators say the latest information shows that the officers had more than enough firepower and protection to destroy the shooter long before they finally did so, the media reported.
The timeline, which American-Statesman and KVUE reported from the documents, included footage from inside the school showing the 18-year-old gunman casually entering the back door at 11:33 a.m., going to the classroom and firing immediately before barricading himself. . The video shows 11 police officers entering the school three minutes later, the media reported.
Police Chief Pete Aredondo called the Uwalde Police Department’s landline and said their suspect had “shot a lot” with an AR-15 rifle and outnumbered the school’s officers, who he said were only armed. with pistols. reported.
Four minutes later, at 11:44 a.m., video from the body’s camera recorded the sound of more shots. At 11:52 a.m., the first ballistic shield arrived as officers became eager to act. Aredondo struggled to find a key to the classroom door, although no one is believed to have tried to open the door, malls said.
Another officer with a ballistic shield arrived at 12:03 p.m., and another came with a shield two minutes later. About 30 minutes before police finally break through the classroom door at 12:50 p.m., Aredondo is heard wondering aloud if the shooter could be shot through a window. It was not until 12:46 pm that Aredondo told the members of the tactical team to break through the door when they were ready, the malls reported.
Last week, the San Antonio Express-News reported that video surveillance footage from the school did not show employees trying to open the door leading to the classrooms where the massacre took place. And The New York Times reported that two police officers from the town of Uwalde told a deputy sheriff that they missed a passing chance to shoot the shooter while he was still out of school because they feared they would hit children.
Delays in law enforcement response are at the heart of the investigation into the massacre and its consequences at the federal, state and local levels. The questioning of the reaction of the law enforcement authorities started days after the slaughter. Colonel Steve McCrow, director of the Texas Public Safety Department, said on May 27 that Aredondo made the “wrong decision” when he chose not to storm the classroom for more than 70 minutes, even when trapped fourth-graders in two classrooms were were desperate to call 911 for help.
Aredondo later said he was not considered responsible and suggested that someone else had taken control of law enforcement response. Arredondo has denied repeated requests for comment to the Associated Press.
State police initially said the gunman entered through an outside door that was opened by a teacher. A spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said Tuesday, May 31, that the teacher closed the door after realizing the shooter was on campus, but it did not lock properly.
On June 2, State Senator Roland Gutierrez said it was a “failure of the system” that school police chief Pete Aredondo had not received a word about requests for help from people at Rob’s primary school on May 24 because there was no two-way radio contact with city police. .
“I want to know specifically who received the 911 calls,” Gutierrez told a news conference.
The Uwalde school board heard from members of the public on Monday, including relatives of those killed in the attack. They took turns criticizing the police’s response and what they described as weak security measures in the school as a whole.
Liliana Garcia, 16, is the daughter of teacher Irma Garcia, who was killed in the shooting, and Jose Garcia, who died of a heart attack two days later. They had four children – a Marine, a student, a seventh grader and Lilyana.
“The knowledge of being an orphan at such a young age is unthinkable,” she told the school board. “These are the consequences that my family has to endure due to the lack of due care. I would like to share a quote from one of my sister’s agonizing cries. She said, “My mother died defending her students, but who defended my mother?”
A legislative committee examining law enforcement officials’ response closed another day of closed-door hearings in Uwalde on Monday.
At the beginning of the day’s session, State Representative Dustin Burroughs, who chairs the commission investigating the shooting at Rob Elementary School in Uwalde, said the committee would hear more testimony from Uwalde Police Department and another school district police officer. member of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Following Burroughs’ opening remarks during the Uwalde committee hearing, the committee entered an executive session, blocking the public from hearing testimony. Burroughs did not immediately leave the executive session on Monday afternoon to make a statement about the testimony of the day.
Burroughs said testimony would continue Tuesday in Austin. He said he hoped to provide information on when at least a preliminary report would be released to the public.
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