Police admitted to a stunning string of failures — including driving right by the gunman — in responding to the Texas school ѕһᴏᴏтɪпɡѕ while children were being ᴍɑѕѕɑᴄгᴇd inside, with the head of the state’s Department of Public Safety saying the time for making excuses about the botched response was over.
The Friday news conference came after days of confusion, inconsistencies and a muddled timeline of law enforcement’s response to the гɑᴍρɑɡᴇ at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Speaking on the delay in breaching the classroom where the ѕһᴏᴏтᴇг was, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said that “from the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision. There’s no excuse for that.”
“There were children in that classroom that were still at гɪѕᴋ,” he added.
McCraw revealed that the ɡᴜпᴍɑп entered the school through a back door he found propped open at 11:33 a.m. and began ѕһᴏᴏтɪпɡ in classrooms 111 and 112. At least 100 shots were fired “based on the audio evidence at that time,” he said.
Just two minutes later, at least three police officers entered the same door the ɡᴜпᴍɑп did. By 12:03 p.m., there were as many as 19 officers in the hallway.
However, it wasn’t until 12:50 p.m. that the classroom the ɡᴜпᴍɑп was ѕһᴏᴏтɪпɡ in was breached using keys from a janitor. That is when the ѕһᴏᴏтɪпɡ was fɑтɑʟʟʏ ѕһᴏт.
In a press conference late Friday afternoon, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he was “livid” after he was “misled” about initial reports of police response to the ѕһᴏᴏтɪпɡ .
Investigators need to “get to the very seconds of exactly what happened with 100-percent accuracy and explain it to the public and most importantly to the victims who have been devastated,” the governor said.
Abbott insisted law enforcement will get to the bottom of why responding police didn’t take more aggressive action to “eliminate” the ᴋɪʟʟᴇг.
“There will be ongoing investigations that detail exactly who knew what when, who was in charge and what strategy (was used), why was it that particular strategy was employed, why were other strategies not employed?” he said.
“Bottom line would be, why did they not choose the strategy that would have been best to get in there to eliminate the ᴋɪʟʟᴇг and to rescue the children.”
