Uvalde Police Faulted For Slow Response To School Shooting

A Thursday media briefing held by the Uvalde, Texas, police department to explain the timeline of the Tuesday shooting that took the lives of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School only raised more questions.

Conflicting information, including the backtracking of previous statements that had a school district police officer confronting and shooting at the 18-year-old shooter Salvador Ramos before he went into the building, has opened speculation into unexplained delays in stopping Ramos.

According to the police, Ramos first shot his grandmother in the face. He then drove his grandparent’s pickup truck without a driver’s license and crashed the truck into a ditch nearby the school. The first shots he took were at two bystanders leaving a funeral home. The shooter then entered an unlocked door at the school around 11:40 a.m. unchallenged. Police arrived on the scene 12 minutes later. It took them four more minutes to enter the school where they were met and pushed back by gunfire. Heavily protected Border Patrol tactical officers arrived at 12:45 p.m. They engaged in a shootout with Ramos and he was fatally shot around 80 minutes after entering the building just before 1 p.m. They had initially reported that the gunman was taken out 40 minutes to an hour after entering the school.

Javier Cazares, the father of shooting victim Jacklyn Cazares, said police were still gathered outside the school when he arrived.

“Let’s all rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they’re supposed to,” Cazares reported saying. “More could have been done.”

Other parents have corroborated Cazares’ statements, saying that the police could have done more to save the children in the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. since the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, nearly 10 years ago.