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When tactical agents and border patrol officers arrived in the corridor of a primary school in Uwalde, Texas, on May 24, they faced an immediate disadvantage: a gunman and his victims were locked in adjacent classrooms behind metal doors.
Tactical teams known as BORTAC are well acquainted with the breakthrough techniques used to attack hideouts along the US-Mexico border, which they believe are occupied by traffickers and human smugglers. In these scenarios, the lock on the door of an apartment building usually cannot be compared to the heavy cylindrical ram that agents can use to make their way inside.
But the secure classroom doors at Rob Elementary School were different. They had metal frames and opened to the outside, making it impossible to force them open, according to a current and former U.S. Customs and Border Protection official who was informed of the May 24 mass shooting.
It is still unclear how the massacre unfolded, with conflicting accounts of why police waited more than an hour before entering a classroom to confront an armed man who fatally shot 19 children and two teachers and wounded several others. .
But the design of the classroom doors has significantly added to the challenge employees face, according to experts and staff informed. As teachers and their students bled and children called 911 to ask for help, agents and employees who were told the doors were locked were struggling to find keys and tools to get in, officials said. .
Uwalde’s parents, the survivor, tell of the horror and beg for control of the weapon
A generation of mass shootings in US schools has hardened American classrooms, starting with sturdy, lockable doors designed to protect students from intruders. Experts say these doors should be closed at all times to provide maximum protection. However, the doors at Rob’s primary school were apparently not locked when 18-year-old Salvador Ramos entered.
“The door that opens outside is the worst case scenario when you’re trying to try,” said the sergeant. Scott Baines of the Fort Worth Police Department, who spent 12 years on a special response team that was regularly trained for active shooters and other emergency calls.
If children are actively killed or die, staff must do their best to enter the classroom, Baines said, even if they do not have the perfect tools.
“You can use stones to break windows,” he said. “You can use a hammer on the slag walls. You push, push, push until the threat is neutralized or isolated so that he can’t hurt anyone else.
The attack in Robb Elementary lasted 77 minutes. State police are now investigating why it took so long for the authorities to enter the two adjoining classrooms; The Ministry of Justice also conducts a post-action review.
Police reports of the incident have changed dramatically over the past two weeks, and news outlets are gathering details, citing documents related to the investigation and interviews with law enforcement officials.
Timeline: How the police react to the Uwalde shooter
Pete Aredondo, chief of police in the Uwalde school district, which is at the center of public discontent over delayed entry, told the Texas Tribune in an interview Thursday that steel doorposts worked in favor of the shooter by keeping employees outside.
Aredondo, whose law firm said he was not available for an interview on Friday, told the Tribune that he had left his radio behind to make better use of his service weapon against the attacker. He also said he had tried “dozens of keys” but no one fit in the classroom door. It took more than an hour for the police to find the right key and obtain the ballistic shield that provided protection for BORTAC agents when they crossed the threshold of the door.
Without the shield, anyone who opened the door to the outside would face a shot from the shooter’s AR-15 rifle. Two officers were already pierced by bullets after trying to face the shooter during the first few minutes of the attack; they withdrew because Aredondo treated the incident as a clash with a barricaded suspect, not an emergency confrontation with an active shooter, authorities said.
In law enforcement, delinquency is a specialized skill that employees can spend years in training. Some agencies adhere to manual breaches by using relatively simple tools such as rattles and levers. Other officers train in ballistic drilling, using specific rifle ammunition that is designed to dissolve when hitting a hard surface, making it potentially safer for anyone on the other side of the door. Many SWAT teams in large cities use explosive penetration, a quick and efficient way to break down most doors if the operators are well trained.
Steel doors with steel frames that open to the outside can be one of the most difficult breakthroughs for law enforcement, said Marcus Sandy Wall, a retired member of the Houston SWAT team, because employees have to open the door instead of pushing it. . The difficulty may vary depending on the hardware and whether the frame is attached to spikes. But the danger increases dramatically when an active shooter fires from the other side of the door, as was the case in Uwalde, Wall said.
Pete Aredondo spent years preparing for school shooting. Then it happened.
Curtis S. Lavarello, executive director of the School Safety Council, said security doors have been added to classrooms across the country and, when locked, provide excellent protection if an armed man arrives on campus. But, he insisted, authorities must have a way to open them quickly – and they must practice doing so during safety drills.
It is unclear whether school officials or local police in Uwalde did so.
“It’s insane for someone with more than 25 years in law enforcement not to enter this room for more than an hour,” Lavarello said.
“The door that opens outside is not a valid excuse for not penetrating this classroom,” he said. “Saying ‘we can’t take the key’ is nonsense.”
Kenneth C. Trump, a school safety consultant who helps schools and police prepare for mass shootings, said there are key steps the authorities can take to avoid confusion, which appears to have hampered the response. of Uwalde and kept the employees outside in the corridor.
Schools in Uwalde have a safety plan. The shooting showed its limits.
Police departments must have master keys for all school classrooms and drawings of each building, easily accessible, either in patrol cars or in digital form on staff devices.
“That way, through planning and preparation, you know what the types of doors in the building are so you can plan how you get into each room,” Trump said. “That means you probably need a master key, so you won’t have to wait for Mr. Jing-a-ling to come with 50 keys, and then you guess.”
“You can’t create a parking emergency plan in the middle of an emergency,” Trump said. “You have to do this grumbling work ahead of time and it requires attention to detail.”
The BORTAC members, who arrived in Robb first, were not part of a team, according to a CBP official with direct knowledge of the incident, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share preliminary details of the investigation. One was a field supervisor, a CBP official said. Several of them performed routine patrol duties that day.
From Sandy Hook to Uwalde, here’s what happens to the children who survive
BORTAC members do not normally carry rams and ballistic shields in their vehicles unless they are preparing for a specific tactical operation against a target such as hiding, the official said.
In other tactical operations, BORTAC teams can position snipers to track targets through windows. But Robb’s classroom windows were darkened or dimmed by blinds, the clerk said, and with the lights off, it was impossible for staff and agents outside to see where the shooter was.
An American marshal brought the shield to the tactical team or “stack” that was preparing to enter the classroom and face the shooter. After the scene staff managed to unlock the doors, BORTAC agents led a small team into the classroom. The attacker opened fire, police said, and agents killed him.
What they encountered later was appalling. Agents entering the classroom saw “children huddled against a wall,” a CBP official said. The children looked huddled together for protection and fell together when the shooter attacked them at point-blank range with a powerful rifle.
One of the agents pulled a child who was still alive from the pile of small bodies, the officer said. Others carried children wounded and bleeding to ambulances.
Roy Guerrero testified at a House of Representatives hearing on gun violence on June 8. Guerrero is a pediatrician in Uwalde, Texas (Video: The Washington Post)
Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician in Uwalde who testified before lawmakers in Washington this week, described the damage he witnessed when the victims were taken to hospital. “Two children whose bodies were shattered by bullets fired at them, beheaded, whose flesh was torn, that the only clues to their identity were the blood-spattered cartoon clothes that still clung to them,” he said.
As other emergency workers took the stage in the classroom, dozens of border patrol agents gathered in the shade of a tree between the school and the road, a CBP official said. Some agents were in shock, trembling and crying.
Border Patrol agents returned as a group to their station in Uwalde, the official said.
Several had to take off their uniforms and throw them away because they were soaked in blood.
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