The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety said Tuesday that
three minutes after
the killer entered the Uvalde elementary school, where he shot 19 students and two teachers on May 24, there were already enough armed police officers in the scene to stop him.
However, despite having rifles and a bulletproof shield, the agents waited in a hallway of the school for almost an hour without entering the classroom where the killer was barricaded with children and teachers.
Texas authorities have previously said that delay could cost the lives of hostages trapped in the classroom.
Colonel Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, called the police response an "abject abnormality" during his testimony at a state Senate hearing investigating police action during the shooting.
McCraw said Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo decided to put the lives of officers before the lives of children.
[“They really loved each other”: two 10-year-old boys shot from Uvalde are buried side by side to honor their love]
Parents of children killed in a school in Texas demand responsibilities from the authorities
June 21, 202201:38
The delay in the response of law enforcement, despite the children's own calls to the 911 telephone for desperate help, has become the focus of the federal, state and local investigation of the shooting and its consequences.
The Austin American-Statesman newspaper revealed on Monday images from the security camera of the school corridor in which two agents are seen armed with long weapons and a ballistic shield.
According to the newspaper, it is not just that there were enough agents in the corridor almost from the beginning to intervene, as the head of Texas security said today.
In addition, from the 19th minute of the start of the shooting they had rifles and at least one ballistic shield.
However, they decided to wait 58 minutes to enter the classroom where the murderer was entrenched with dozens of children and three teachers.
[Police knew there were children still alive in the classroom with the killer but did not act. This is how the head of the operation in Uvalde justifies it]
Images captured by security cameras show the protective equipment and weapons that Uvalde police had when the shooting began at the elementary school.
Austin American-Statesman Journal
In addition to surveillance videos from the school, the newspaper cited documents and videos from the officers' body cameras.
The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety had said days after the shooting that
Arredondo made "the wrong decision"
when he opted not to enter the classroom held for more than 70 minutes, even as fourth graders were trapped inside two adjoining rooms. they called 911.
