Video: Cops Waited For Over An Hour As Gunman Kept Firing In Texas School
A video of a school shooting at Uvalde, Texas, which was published on Tuesday showed that the police waited more than an hour before violating the classroom where an armed man killed 19 children and two teachers.
Steve McCraw, Head of Texas Public Safety, has described the police response to the May 24 attack as “despicable failure” and said the officer wasted vital time looking for a class key that was “never needed.”
The surveillance camera video obtained by the Austin American-Statesman newspaper showed that the 18-year-old armed man crashed into his truck outside the Robb Elementary School and then entered the building at 11:33 am armed with a semi-automatic rifle.
As he walked along the empty hallway, a boy looked at him from around the corner and rushed when the armed man opened the fire into the classroom.
The camera captured the armed man shot dozens of rounds from the door before entering inside. He stepped briefly into the camera view, re -entered the classroom and was not visible anymore.
Several police officers armed with a gun were seen arriving in the school hall in three minutes from the first shot fired.
They went to the hallway where the shooting took place but retreated when the armed man opened a shot from the classroom.
During the next hour, the police were seen swarming at the end of the hall while reinforcements arrived, including officers armed with semi-automatic weapons and ballistic shields.
At 12:21 at night, 45 minutes after the arrival of the first officer at the scene, the shot could be heard from where the armed man was hiding.
The officers finally stormed the classroom at 12:50 and killed the armed man – one hour and 14 minutes after their arrival.
The video did not show the shot children and Austin-American-Statesman said that they had removed the audio of their screams.
‘Terrible decisions’
McCraw, Head of Texas Public Safety, told the state senate session in June that the police had enough officers to stop the shooter three minutes after he entered school.
On-Scene Commander Pete Arredondo has “decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” McCraw said.
“Officers have weapons, children do not have it. Officers have body protectors, children do not have it. Officers have training, subjects do not have,” he testified.
Arredondo has claimed that the class door was locked, postponed their steps to the shooter, but McCraw told the investigation that it was not believed as a problem.
“He is waiting for a key that has never been needed,” said the official.
McCraw told the investigation that Arredondo, who had since been deferred, had made a “terrible decision.”
He said the response was contrary to the lessons learned since the shooting of Columbine High School that killed 13 people in 1999.
“There is strong evidence that the response of law enforcement to attacks on Robb Elementary is a despicable failure and is contrary to everything we have learned over the past two decades since the Columbine massacre,” McCraw said.
Shannon Watts, founder of the Moms weapons control group demanded action, condemning police responses after watching videos.
“Dozens of officers – local, state and federal – very armed, wearing body protectors and helmets, have protective shields. They walk around, weapons points in class, make calls, send text, see floor plans – but never try to enter space Class, “Watt Tweeted.
Uvalde shooting, the worst shooting of America in a decade, came 10 days after a 18-year-old child used an AR-15 type assault rifle to kill 10 African-Americans in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
