Tag: texas

A Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) official has said officers “could have been shot” if they engaged the gunman holed up with his victims in a classroom at Robb Elementary School before a specialist tactical team arrived.

Authorities on Thursday sketched out a timeline of events from when 18-year-old Salvador Ramos crashed his vehicle to when he entered the Texas school at around 11.40 a.m. and slaughtered 19 students and two teachers.

But it wasn’t until almost 1 p.m. that Ramos had been killed and the siege was over, around 90 minutes later.

Questions have been raised amid mounting public anger and scrutiny about the response of law enforcement as more details emerge about the timeline of events.

Texas DPS spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez said the first priority for officers in an active shooter situation is to stop the killing and preserve life.

“But also one thing that, of course, the American people need to understand, is that officers are making entry into this building. They do not know where the gunman is,” Oliverez told CNN.

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After it was revealed on Thursday that not only did police delay their response to sending tactical teams into the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex. amid a school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead but prevented parents from entering, the Wall Street Journal reported that one mother sprinted into the school to get her children, over objections from law enforcement.

Angeli Rose Gomez drove 40 miles to the school upon hearing of the shooting, and she arrived, said “The police were doing nothing. They were just standing outside the fence. They weren’t going in there or running anywhere.”

While state officials said that police were at the school mere moments after the teen gunman entered the school, barricading himself in a classroom and opening fire on young students, they also said that officers were unable to gain access to the classroom.

Gomez said that she was only one of several parents at the school demanding that officers stop waiting around and go into the school. It was then that “federal marshals approached her and put her in handcuffs,” the Journal reports.

The marshals told her she was being arrested for “intervening in an active investigation.” Gomez was able to convince local law enforcement to free her, but said she also saw a father pepper-sprayed, and another tackled and thrown to the ground by law enforcement as he tried to go to the school. His 10-year-old daughter was massacred in the slaughter.

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Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.

“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the close-knit town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.

Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting, arriving while police were still gathered outside the building.

Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders.

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” he said. “More could have been done.”

“They were unprepared,” he added.

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Texas officials have launched an investigation into the Uvalde police response to the shooting at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday after conflicting statements over whether cops fired at the gunman as he made his way inside. 

Salvador Ramos, 18, arrived at the school in Uvalde at 11.30am, crashing his car into a ditch. 

A school resource officer was at the scene but he failed to stop him from making his way inside. 

Two other cops also rushed to the school at that time – Ramos had just shot his grandmother in the face at their home less than five miles away. She survived and called the police.

It was first reported that those cops exchanged gunfire with Ramos, but police now say they cannot confirm that. 

Ramos went on to barricade himself inside the classroom, killing 19 kids and two teachers, before a SWAT team breached the door and shot him around an hour later. 

Sources say police were struggling to get into the classroom and needed a key to open the door. 

Eventually, a border patrol agent was able to get inside and the shooting was declared over at 1.06pm. 

But it questions remain over why it took police so long to get into the classroom where the kids were trapped with the gunman. 

Frustrated parents were standing outside the school begging cops to go inside when the shooting was unfolding. 

Javier Cazares, whose nine-year-old daughter was murdered, says cops were ‘just standing there’ and waiting for protective shields to arrive at the scene before they went in. 

‘They said they rushed in and all that, we didn’t see that,’ he told The New York Times, adding that many were ‘just standing there.’ 

‘There were plenty of men out there armed to the teeth that could have gone in faster. This could have been over in a couple minutes,’ he said. 

He added that police were faster to escort Beto O’Rourke out of the press conference yesterday when he started heckling the governor than they were to get into the school. 

Angel Garza, whose daughter was killed, was handcuffed after trying to run into the school when he heard that a ‘girl called Amerie’ had been shot. He later found out that she was among those who died while giving medical aid to other children who escaped. 

Derek Sotelo, 26, who works in a tire shop nearby, said parents were begging to be let into the school.  

‘They were just angry, especially the dads. We were wondering, “What the heck is going on? Are they going in?” ‘The dads were saying, “Give me the vest, I’ll go in there!’ 

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