Law enforcement explained its slow response to Tuesday’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, by acknowledging Friday that it was “the wrong decision” to assess that there had been a transition from an active-shooter situation to a barricaded hostage situation while children were still inside the classroom and at risk.
“Of course, with the benefit of hindsight . . . It was the wrong decision. Period,” Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said during a news conference.
The incident commander made a misjudgment, McCraw said, as students lay dying, playing dead or calling 911, from inside Rooms 111 and 112. McCraw revealed harrowing details of some of those calls.
The gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, fired more than 100 rounds starting at 11:33 a.m. More than an hour later, at 12:36, a child called 911 and was told to stay quiet, and at 12:47 she asked a dispatcher to “please send the police now,” McCraw said. Police did not breach the room with a Border Patrol tactical team until after that, officials have said.
The briefing offered the clearest explanation yet for why police did not pursue the gunman earlier.
The law enforcement official in charge of the police response at the scene made the decision not to rush in after determining that the scene had shifted from an active shooting to a barricaded gunman, McCraw said.
That decision, which the official involved has not publicly discussed, appears to break with widely accepted law enforcement protocols during active-shooter situations.
Before the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, the accepted practice was for police to secure a scene while waiting for specialized tactical units – such as SWAT teams – to arrive. But after it took about 45 minutes for the SWAT team to mobilize during that tragedy, police across the country shifted gears, instead emphasizing the importance of pursuing and going after attackers.
That shift has saved lives, experts say. Officers have rushed into scenes akin to war zones in some cases, authorities say, while others have later described expecting to potentially die while searching for assailants.
In Texas, it took about three days for authorities – who have offered shifting, sometimes contradictory accounts of the tragedy – to explain why officers had not breached the classroom door to confront the attacker earlier. Officials have described the gunman as pinned down or said officers did not rush in to avoid getting shot.
Also Friday, Ramos’s mother asked asking the families of the victims to “forgive me” for her son’s actions and not to judge Ramos for the massacre.
Adriana Martinez told the Mexican media outlet Televisa that she had “no words to say” about her son carrying out the worst mass shooting at an American school in nearly a decade. She also said her son, who was killed by authorities, “had his reasons” for going through with the shooting, but did not elaborate.
Instead, she asked for forgiveness.
“I don’t know what he was thinking. He had his reasons for doing what he did and please don’t judge him,” she told Televisa, a CNN affiliate, in Spanish. “I only want the innocent children who died to forgive me.”
When she was asked what she would tell the families of the victims, Martinez responded, “Forgive me, forgive my son.”
After she repeated that Ramos “had his reasons,” she was asked by Televisa what they might be. Martinez said the shooting might have been her son’s way of distracting himself “from the other bad things.”
“I have no words,” she said. “I don’t know.”
The mother’s sentiments were echoed by her son’s father, also named Salvador Ramos. The father told the Daily Beast, “I just want the people to know I’m sorry man, [for] what my son did.”
“I never expected my son to do something like that,” he said. “He should’ve just killed me, you know, instead of doing something like that to someone.”
President Joe Biden will travel to Texas on Sunday to meet with victims’ families.
(c) 2022, The Washington Post · Timothy Bella, Kim Bellware, Meryl Kornfield, Keith McMillan
These lazy good for nothing cops have innocent blood on their hands. But of course none of these corrupt officials will lose their jobs or pensions over this. And we are supposed to look up to and respect these enablers?
It was a hoax from A-Z like the Sandy Hoax Elementary School. e.g. two different media using 2 different father’s crying over the same child “of theirs”.
Which alternate universe are you from?
“He had his reasons for doing what he did and please don’t judge him,”
REALLY? That’s what you’re going with? Now we know where the evil came from!
““Of course, with the benefit of hindsight . . . It was the wrong decision. Period,” Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said during a news conference.”
That implies that they needed the benefit of hindsight to make that determination. But then, then the article notes that this decision was a “break with widely accepted law enforcement protocols during active-shooter situations.”
So, the obvious question is why did they break with widely accepted protocols and then, by way of explanation, say that it was hindsight that would have helped?