Uvalde Elementary School (screen capture via WFAA)Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told state lawmakers that the response by law enforcement officials to the Uvalde elementary school mass shooting was “an abject failure and antithetical to everything we’ve learned over the last two decades since the Columbine massacre.”
NEW: Texas officials called law enforcement’s response to the Uvalde shooting “an abject failure.”
They said that “3 minutes after the subject entered…there was a sufficient number of armed officers…to isolate, distract and neutralize the subject.”
https://t.co/S4f8mYx4hM— Axios (@axios) June 21, 2022
From Axios:
Police previously said the shooter had locked himself inside the two connected classrooms. Security footage reviewed by the Texas Tribune didn’t show law enforcement trying to open the doors, prompting some officials to be skeptical that the doors were locked at all.
The doors to the classrooms were also unlocked as they were not lockable from the inside the classroom, meaning that “there’s no way for the subject to lock the door from the inside,” McCraw said.
No evidence has shown that officers responding to the shooting tried to open the door to see if it was locked or not, McCraw testified. Instead, they waited for a key. “You didn’t need a key, okay? There’s tools,” McCraw said.
More from McCraw during today’s hearing:
“Three minutes after the subject entered the west building, there was a sufficient number of armed officers — wearing body armor — to isolate, distract and neutralize the subject.
“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander, who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children.
“The officers had weapons, the children had none. The officers had body armor, the children had none. The officers had training, the subject had none.”
McCraw: “The officers had weapons, the children had none. The officers had body armor, the children had none. The officers had training, the subject had none.” https://t.co/gElk5krC5a
— Axios (@axios) June 21, 2022