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 officers waited within the hallway for greater than 45 minutes, authorities mentioned Friday.
The commander on the scene in Uvalde — the college district’s police chief — believed that 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos was barricaded inside adjoining school rooms at Robb Elementary School and that youngsters have been not in danger, Steven McCraw, the top 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 college and when U.S. Border Patrol brokers unlocked the classroom door and killed him.
When the border brokers have been set to enter the room, there have been as many as 19 officers within the hallway exterior, McCraw mentioned.
Ramos killed 19 youngsters and two lecturers contained in the room, 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 pictures have been “sporadic” for a lot of the 48 minutes that 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 college 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. Five minutes after that, authorities mentioned, Ramos entered the college 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 college 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 residence, officers mentioned.
Contrary to earlier statements by officers, a college district police officer was not inside the college when Ramos arrived. When that officer did reply, he unknowingly drove previous Ramos, who was crouched behind a automotive parked exterior and firing on the constructing, McCraw mentioned.
At 11:33 p.m., Ramos entered the college by means of a rear door that had been propped open and fired greater than 100 rounds right into a pair of school rooms, McCraw mentioned. He didn’t deal with why the door was propped open.
Two minutes later, three native law enforcement officials 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 businesses had assembled within the hallway, taking sporadic fireplace 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 college from almost 70 miles (113 kilometers) away within the border city of Del Rio, the company mentioned in a tweet Friday.
But the commander contained in the constructing — the college district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo — determined the group ought to wait to confront the gunman, on the assumption that the scene was not an lively assault, McCraw mentioned.
The disaster got here to an finish at 12:50 after officers used keys from a janitor to open the classroom door, entered the room and shot and killed Ramos, he mentioned.
Arredondo couldn’t instantly be reached for remark Friday. No one answered the door at his residence and he didn’t reply to a telephone message left on the district’s police headquarters.
Gov. Greg Abbott, who at a Wednesday information convention lauded the police response, mentioned Friday that he was “misled,” and he’s “livid.”
In his earlier statements, the governor advised reporters, he was repeating what he had been advised. “The information that I was given turned out, in part, to be inaccurate,” he mentioned.
Abbott mentioned precisely what occurred must be “thoroughly, exhaustively” investigated.
Abbott beforehand praised legislation enforcement for his or her “amazing courage by running toward gunfire” and their “quick response.”
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 below investigation, with authorities saying Ramos had no recognized prison or psychological well being historical past.
During the siege, pissed off onlookers urged law enforcement officials to cost into the college, in keeping with witnesses.
“Go in there! Go in there!” ladies 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 college sooner: “There were more of them. There was just one of him.”
Cazares mentioned that when he arrived, he noticed two officers exterior the college 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, outfitted to confront the gunman, he mentioned.
As extra dad and mom flocked to the college, he and others pressed police to behave, Cazares mentioned. He heard about 4 gunshots earlier than he and the others have 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, govt director of Safe Havens International, which works to make faculties safer, cautioned that it’s laborious 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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Associated Press reporter Jake Bleiberg contributed from Dallas.
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More on the college capturing in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings
Source: www.bostonherald.com”