Texas police admit ruling gunman inactive was ‘the wrong decision’
Officials have admitted to critical delays in the law enforcement response to the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas, where students inside Robb Elementary School made several calls to 911 on Tuesday within the hour officers arrived and when the 18-year-old gunman was fatally shot by an officer.
Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, admitted that officers did not breach a classroom door and kill Salvador Ramos for more than an hour after initially arriving on Tuesday, falsely believing the gunman was “barricaded” and no longer an active shooter threat, despite pleas from schoolchildren inside their classrooms.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered in Houston, Texas on Friday to protest the National Rifle Association’s annual conference, where Senator Ted Cruz and former president Donald Trump addressed the gun rights lobby group to claim their political opponents are exploiting tragedy, despite supporting the politically powerful lobbyists just days after the kilings.
Uvalde police trained for an active shooter. So why did they fail so badly?
Uvalde school police held active shooter training just two months before Salvador Ramos massacred 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary.
The Texas city’s Consolidated Independent School District held the training session to “prepare as best as possible” for exactly the type of situation that took place earlier this week.
The Uvalde CISD posted about the training session on Facebook on 22 March.
Graeme Massie looked into their training practices.
Josh Marcus28 May 2022 05:00
First Greg Abbott praised law enforcement. Then he called them out.
The day after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas Governor Greg Abbott sounded nearly triumphant as he praised police performance.
“The reality is, as horrible as what happened, it could have been worse. The reason it was not worse is because law enforcement officials did what they do,” Mr Abbott said at the time.
Now, as evidence appears that they made crucial errors and waited over an hour to move on gunman Salvador Ramos, Mr Abbott has changed his tune.
“I was misled. I am livid about what happened,” he said at a Friday press conference in Uvalde.
Catch up on the controversy here.
Josh Marcus28 May 2022 04:30
‘It was the wrong decision’: Police admit they mistakenly ruled Texas gunman inactive as children called 911
As officers massed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, they wrongly believed the mass shooting was over and had shifted to a “barricaded subject” scenario.
As a result of this decision, they elected to wait for backup and extra equipment before charging the classroom where gunman Salvador Ramos was locked in with scores of terrified students.
The potentially fatal delay may have lead to 19 students and 2 teachers being massacred inside.
“Of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period. There’s no excuse for that,” Steven C McCraw, Director and Colonel of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a news conference on Friday.
Josh Marcus28 May 2022 04:00
Uvalde police call in backup to protect…themselves
Uvalde police have faced scathing criticism that a multi-level failure led them to wait more than an hour before confronting Salvador Ramos and killing him.
It’s an ironic echo of what happened on the day of the shooting itself, where police took the highly controversial step of waiting for more backup to arrive even though nearly 20 officers were position outside the classroom where Ramos was barricaded inside with students.
Josh Marcus28 May 2022 03:30
Ted Cruz claims ‘armed good guys’ stop school shooters, despite failings at Uvalde
While speaking at an NRA event on Friday, Senator Ted Cruz reiterated a common Republican talking…
Read More: Texas shooting latest news: Trump speaks at NRA meeting as Abbott ‘livid’ over police errors