A “negotiator” tried in vain to contact the school shooter in Uwalde, Texas, by phone while cops waited to retrieve the crazy shooter and terrified children called 911 asking for help, the mayor said.
Mayor Don McLaughlin said he was standing next to an unidentified negotiator at Hillcrest Funeral Home near Rob Elementary School, where 18-year-old Salvador Ramos killed 19 children and two teachers last Tuesday.
“His main goal was to try to get this man to call,” McLaughlin said in a joint interview Wednesday with Telemundo San Antonio and the Washington Post.
“They tried every number they found, but Ramos did not respond,” the Washington Post reported.
The mayor said he was unaware of the torturous calls to 911 coming from children in two connected classrooms where the massacre was unfolding – alleging that one of the callers begged the emergency dispatcher “please send police now!”
McLaughlin said he also did not believe the negotiator knew about the calls.
The head of Texas’s public safety department said Pete Aredondo had made the “wrong decision” to treat the clash as a “barricaded suspect.”
The latest revelation comes as local law enforcement officials face growing scrutiny over how they handled the reaction to the shooting, which took more than an hour. The gunman shot his grandmother in her home, then hit her pickup truck in a ditch near the school shortly before 11:30 a.m.
The last of the shootings at a school in Texas
The gunman entered the school at 11:33 a.m., but was not killed until 12:50 p.m., when a tactical unit arrived and unlocked a door to the connected classrooms, officials said. Pete Aredondo, head of the Uwalde police school district, is wondering why he decided to wait to break down the door, even though the first police officers entered the building minutes after Ramos.
Nineteen children and two teachers were killed last Tuesday.Facebook / Joe Paul Ortega
The head of Texas’s public security department said Aredondo had made the “wrong decision” to treat the opposition as a “barricaded suspect” rather than an active gun crisis. Law enforcement is trying to confront an armed man as soon as possible during an active shooting, officials said.
As questions arose as to why the cops backed off while people were still alive in the classrooms, Aredondo tried to stay out of the public eye. The mayor said on Monday that he had not spoken to Aredondo, The Post reported.
McLaughlin, a Republican who supports expanded scrutiny of the past, also revealed that Robb students will be enrolled in other schools.
The gunman entered the school at 11:33 a.m. but was not killed until 12:50 p.m. REUTERS / Marco Bello
“I hope we break it down,” he said in an interview. “I would never expect a teacher, student or anyone to return to this building.
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