By JIM VERTUNO and ELLIOT SPAGAT
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Students trapped inside a classroom with a gunman repeatedly known as 911 throughout this week’s assault on a Texas elementary college, together with one who pleaded, “Please send the police now,” as almost 20 officers waited within the hallway for greater than 45 minutes, authorities mentioned Friday.
The commander on the scene in Uvalde — the varsity district’s police chief — believed that 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos was barricaded inside adjoining lecture rooms at Robb Elementary School and that youngsters had been now not in danger, Steven McCraw, the pinnacle of the Texas Department of Public Safety, mentioned at a contentious information convention.
“It was the wrong decision,” he mentioned.
Friday’s briefing got here after authorities spent three days offering usually conflicting and incomplete details about the 90 minutes that elapsed between the time Ramos entered the varsity and when U.S. Border Patrol brokers unlocked the classroom door and killed him.
Ramos killed 19 youngsters and two lecturers, however his motive stays unclear, authorities mentioned.
There was a barrage of gunfire shortly after Ramos entered the classroom the place officers ultimately killed him, however these photographs had been “sporadic” for a lot of the 48 minutes when officers waited within the hallway, McCraw mentioned. He mentioned investigators have no idea if or what number of youngsters died throughout that point.
Throughout the assault, lecturers and kids repeatedly known as 911 asking for assist, together with a woman who pleaded: “Please send the police now,” McCraw mentioned.
Questions have mounted over the period of time it took officers to enter the varsity to confront the gunman.
It was 11:28 a.m. Tuesday when Ramos’ Ford pickup slammed right into a ditch behind the low-slung Texas college and the motive force jumped out carrying an AR-15-style rifle.
Twelve minutes after that, authorities say, Ramos entered the varsity and located his method to the fourth-grade classroom the place he killed the 21 victims.
But it wasn’t till 12:58 p.m. that legislation enforcement radio chatter mentioned Ramos had been killed and the siege was over.
What occurred in these 90 minutes, in a working-class neighborhood close to the sting of the city of Uvalde, has fueled mounting public anger and scrutiny over legislation enforcement’s response to Tuesday’s rampage.
“They say they rushed in,” mentioned Javier Cazares, whose fourth-grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed within the assault, and who raced to the varsity because the bloodbath unfolded. “We didn’t see that.”
According to the brand new timeline offered by McCraw, After crashing his truck, Ramos fired on two folks popping out of a close-by funeral house, officers mentioned.
Contrary to earlier statements by officers, a college district police officer was not inside the varsity when Ramos arrived. When that officer did reply, he unknowingly drove previous Ramos, who was crouched behind a automobile parked exterior and firing on the constructing, McCraw mentioned.
At 11:33 p.m., Ramos entered the varsity by means of a rear door that had been propped open and fired greater than 100 rounds right into a pair of lecture rooms, McCraw mentioned.
DPS spokesman Travis Considine mentioned investigators haven’t decided why the door was propped open.
Two minutes later, three native cops arrived and entered the constructing by means of the identical door, adopted quickly after by 4 others, McCraw mentioned. Within quarter-hour, as many as 19 officers from totally different companies had assembled within the hallway, taking sporadic hearth from Ramos, who was holed up in a classroom.
Ramos was nonetheless inside at 12:10 p.m. when the primary U.S. Marshals Service deputies arrived. They had raced to the varsity from almost 70 miles (113 kilometers) away within the border city of Del Rio, the company mentioned in a tweet Friday.
But the police commander contained in the constructing determined the group ought to wait to confront the gunman, on the idea that the scene was now not an energetic assault, McCraw mentioned.
The disaster got here to an finish after a bunch of Border Patrol tactical officers entered the varsity at 12:45 p.m., mentioned Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Travis Considine. They engaged in a shootout with the gunman, who was holed up within the fourth-grade classroom. Moments earlier than 1 p.m., he was useless.
Ken Trump, president of the consulting agency National School Safety and Security Services, mentioned the size of the timeline raised questions.
“Based on best practices, it’s very difficult to understand why there were any types of delays, particularly when you get into reports of 40 minutes and up of going in to neutralize that shooter,” he mentioned.
The motive for the bloodbath — the nation’s deadliest college capturing since Newtown, Connecticut, virtually a decade in the past — remained underneath investigation, with authorities saying Ramos had no identified prison or psychological well being historical past.
During the siege, pissed off onlookers urged cops to cost into the varsity, based on witnesses.
“Go in there! Go in there!” girls shouted on the officers quickly after the assault started, mentioned Juan Carranza, 24, who watched the scene from exterior a home throughout the road.
Carranza mentioned the officers ought to have entered the varsity sooner: “There were more of them. There was just one of him.”
Cazares mentioned that when he arrived, he noticed two officers exterior the varsity and about 5 others escorting college students out of the constructing. But 15 or 20 minutes handed earlier than the arrival of officers with shields, geared up to confront the gunman, he mentioned.
As extra mother and father flocked to the varsity, he and others pressed police to behave, Cazares mentioned. He heard about 4 gunshots earlier than he and the others had been ordered again to a parking zone.
“A lot of us were arguing with the police, ‘You all need to go in there. You all need to do your jobs.’ Their response was, ‘We can’t do our jobs because you guys are interfering,’” Cazares mentioned.
Michael Dorn, government director of Safe Havens International, which works to make colleges safer, cautioned that it’s onerous to get a transparent understanding of the information quickly after a capturing.
“The information we have a couple of weeks after an event is usually quite different than what we get in the first day or two. And even that is usually quite inaccurate,” Dorn mentioned. For catastrophic occasions, “you’re usually eight to 12 months out before you really have a decent picture.”
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Bleiberg reported from Dallas.
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More on the varsity capturing in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings
Source: www.bostonherald.com”