Law enforcement had enough officers at the scene of the Uvalde school massacre to have apprehended the gunman three minutes after he entered the building, and they never checked a classroom door to see if it was locked, he testified. Tuesday Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Police officers with rifles stood and waited for more than an hour before they finally stormed the classroom and killed the gunman, ending the May 24 attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead. The classroom door was not lockable from the inside, but there is no indication that officers tried to open it while the attacker was inside, McCraw said.
McCraw testified at a state Senate hearing on the police handling of the tragedy. Delays in law enforcement response have become the focus of federal, state, and local investigations. “Obviously not enough training was done in this situation, plain and simple. Because the commander on the ground made terrible decisions,” McCraw said of Pete Arredondo, the police chief for the Uvalde school district.
Eight minutes after the shooter entered the building, an officer reported that police had a “kickstand” they could use to break down the classroom door, McCraw said. Nineteen minutes after the gunman’s entry, the police introduced the first shield into the building.
The public safety chief outlined to the committee a series of missed opportunities, miscommunications and other mistakes. “It was an abject failure,” he said.
State police initially said the gunman entered the school through an exterior door that had been opened by a teacher, but McGraw said the teacher had locked it and it could only be locked from the outside.
Questions about law enforcement’s response began days after the massacre. McCraw said three days after the shooting that Arredondo made “the wrong decision” when he opted not to storm the classroom for more than 70 minutes, even as fourth graders trapped inside two classrooms desperately called 911 to ask for help. aid.
Arredondo later said that he did not consider himself the person in charge and assumed someone had taken control of the police response.
Associated Press/OnCuba.
