"A contemptible failure."
This is how the Texas authorities have described the poor police response to repeated calls for help after a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde.
In the May 24 tragedy, 19 children and two teachers died.
The actions of the security forces continue to add criticism almost a month after the incident perpetrated by an 18-year-old armed with an AR-15 rifle.
Steven McCraw, the director of the Department of Public Security of the State, has given this Tuesday a detailed recount of the facts that draws the accumulation of errors that gave time (almost 80 minutes) and freedom to a murderer to commit one of the most recent crimes atrocious United States.
McCraw has said that the police-led response, both elements of the local force and one focused on the school district, has been "contrary to everything we have learned."
In his opinion, Major Pete Arredondo, in charge of policing the schools, prioritized the lives of his agents over that of the students at Robb Elementary, an institution for children between the ages of seven and twelve.
The corporation headed by Arredondo was created just four years ago with the main objective of preventing events like the one in Uvalde.
In another screenshot from the school's security cameras, at least five heavily armed police officers, with two ballistic shields and long guns, stand in a hallway. Robb Elementary School (AP)
According to McCraw, three minutes after Salvador Ramos entered the building at 11:33 a.m., the building west of the center already had "a sufficient number of armed agents dressed in bulletproof vests and armor to isolate, distract and neutralize" the shooter. .
The first were two agents from the Uvalde Police Department and another one from the School District Police.
Ramos fired at them, forcing them to fall back and stay in the main corridor of the facility.
A few minutes later, another seven police officers accompanied by Arredondo arrived.
They never moved from the corridor and they never fired at Ramos.
Arredondo, who forgot his radio, used his cell phone to call for backup.
In the first call he made to the command center he said, inaccurately, that the shooter was cornered.
"I need more firepower because we only have pistols and this guy has a rifle," he said as he called for backup.
Shortly after eleven more elements arrived, at least two with rifles.
Nobody entered the room, despite the fact that one of the action protocols adopted after the Columbine massacre is that the shooters should be attacked as quickly as possible.
In less than 30 minutes, they already had four shields at their disposal capable of protecting them from bullets of the caliber used by the 18-year-old.
“The only thing that prevented these police officers from entering rooms 111 and 112 was the commander on the scene,” McCraw added Tuesday before Texas Senate lawmakers.
Steven McCraw, the director of the State Department of Public Safety, uses a map and graphs to present the Texas Senate with a timeline of what happened on June 21. SARA DIGGINS (VIA REUTERS)
Calls to the emergency services began to be made inside the classrooms.
Children and teachers were asking for help while the police were already inside the school premises.
One of those calls was made by teacher Eva Mireles, who said that she had been injured and was bleeding profusely.
Her husband, Ruben Ruiz, a Uvalde police officer, was on the other side of the wall.
He was one of the agents waiting for orders to act.
Mireles was one of the victims of the worst school shooting on record in Texas.
The policemen waited six minutes for the keys to be able to enter the classrooms, but those doors most likely were unlocked, McCraw admitted Tuesday.
There is no record that any uniformed man has tried to open them.
Arredondo tried the set of keys on other locks.
"According to the information we have now, I think those doors were not secured," said the head of the Department, who explained that the shooter did not have keys that would allow him to break through the rooms.
"He couldn't put the insurance on either," he added.
The investigation has also revealed that the authorities had at their disposal a Halligan bar, a tool that helps firefighters to open locked doors, very early on.
According to
The Texas Tribune
, who was able to review the security videos taken that Tuesday, no police officer ever tried to open any of the doors that led to the two interconnected rooms, the scene of the massacre.
At the Texas Senate hearing today, McCraw also showed how an interior door latch failed to lock properly on the day of the massacre.Sara Diggins/American-Statesman (AP)
About 20 minutes after the shooting began, an agent from the Department of Public Safety arrived at the scene and said:
-”Are there still children in the classrooms?
If there are, then you have to go in now.”
-”It is unknown at the moment”, was the answer he got from another agent.
- "If there are children in there we have to go in," he insisted.
-"Who is in charge will determine that", was what came on the radio.
The names of the agents have not been revealed, but the official from the Department of Public Security waited six minutes in the corridor with a significant number of police officers and then came out to help evacuate other children, including one who was hiding in a bathroom.
The problem is that no one knew exactly who was in charge that afternoon.
Arredondo said a few weeks ago that he did not feel responsible for coordinating the police response.
The incident scene was chaotic.
Local, state and federal corporations responded to the call, creating a difficult operation for law enforcement agencies accustomed to verticality.
This impasse gave Ramos 77 minutes to vent his murderous rage in four fiery rounds.
The first when he entered a few seconds after 11:33, another at 11:40, 11:44 and 12:21.
The school district police chief, who is at the center of all the criticism, also denied that he asked officers who were in the building to wait.
The relatives of the victims of Uvalde have requested this Monday the resignation of Arredondo.
At 12:38 p.m., almost 20 minutes after the set of keys had arrived, an officer found a skeleton key that would open the door.
This was introduced to the door of room 111, which allowed the entry of the Border Patrol tactical team, who fired the bullet that killed Ramos.
The task force put an end to the nightmare after 77 minutes of horror.
But many of the questions about what happened that afternoon still remain to be resolved.
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