Texas elementary school, where a gunman shot and killed 19 children and two teachers last month, is being demolished.
The Uvalde mayor’s announcement came hours after a senior Texas official said law enforcement’s response to the Robb Elementary School shooting was “a horrific failure,” with a commander putting officers’ lives ahead of the children’s. Suggested.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin didn’t give a timeline for when the school would be demolished but said at a council meeting, “You can never ask a kid to go back, or a teacher to go back, in that school ever.”
In a separate hearing in the Texas Senate into the May 24 shooting, Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), said the commander on the ground made “terrible decisions” and the officers on the basis lacked adequate training. have had, costing precious time in which lives could have been lost. Be saved.
“There is compelling evidence that the law enforcement response to the attack on Robb Elementary was an abject failure and contradicts everything we have been taught,” Mr. McCraw said.
Many parents and relatives of the children and staff have expressed deep anger at the police’s actions after the gunman entered the school and started shooting.
One delay Mr. McCraw discussed involved the search for a key to the classroom where the shooting occurred. He noted that the door was unlocked and that there was no evidence that officers were trying to see if the door was secured while others searched for a key.
“There’s no way . . . for the subject to lock the door from the inside,” Mr. McCraw said.
Days after the shooting, the Texas DPS said as many as 19 officers waited more than an hour in a hallway outside the classrooms before a U.S. border patrol-led tactical team finally entered. Mr. McCraw reiterated that during Tuesday’s hearing.
“The officers had weapons, the children none. The officers had bulletproof vests, the children none. The officers had training, the subject had none,” he said.
“An hour, 14 minutes, and eight seconds – how long the children and teachers in room 111 waited to be rescued.
“Three minutes after the subject entered the western building, there was a sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate, distract and neutralize the issue.
“The only thing that kept a corridor of dedicated officers from entering rooms 111 and 112 was the commander on site, who decided to put the officers’ lives before the lives of children.”
Mr. McCraw said the deputy chief, Uvalde Police Chief Pete Arredondo, “was waiting for radio and guns, and he was waiting for shields, and he was waiting for SWAT. Finally, he waited for a key that was never needed.”
Mr. Arredondo did not address either hearing on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, Arredondo said he never saw himself as the incident commander at the shooting site and had not ordered police to break through the building.
During Tuesday night’s city council meeting, Mayor McLaughlin accused Mr. McCraw of diverting blame from state police enforcement.
“At each briefing, he leaves the number of his own officers and rangers who were on the scene that day,” the mayor said.
“Colonel McCraw has an agenda, and it is not to present a full report on what happened and to provide factual answers to the families of this community.”
Mayor McLaughlin said state officials were leaving the city and its residents after dark, declaring “the gloves are off.”
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, said in a statement that he wants all facts related to the shooting to be released to the families of the victims and the public as soon as possible.
Arredondo told the Texas Tribune that he left his two radios outside the school because he wanted his hands free to hold his gun.
He’d said he needed tactical gear, a sniper, and keys to get in, and he kept himself off the doors for forty minutes to avoid firing shots.
Community members and parents of the victims urged Mr. Arredondo to resign during a passionate school board meeting on Monday, ABC News reported.
