TEXAS OFFICIAL SAYS UVALDE CLASSROOM DOOR WAS UNLOCKED, CALLS POLICE RESPONSE AN ‘ABJECT FAILURE’
Texas local official called the shooting at the Uvalde school that left 19 students and two teachers dead an “abject failure.”
State Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, who spoke to state officials during a Texas Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, said law enforcement “put the lives of officers before the lives of children” during the Robb Elementary School massacre. He said it was “antithetical” to the lessons learned about active shooter situations since the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999.
“We do know this; there’s compelling evidence that the law enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary was an abject failure and antithetical to everything we’ve learned over the last two decades since the Columbine massacre,” he told lawmakers in Austin.
He stated that the classrooms are only locked from the outside, and the police’s statement that they were waiting for the master key to unlock the door is misleading.
According to McCraw, the classroom door where the shooting occurred was unlocked. He explained thoroughly how the police could have opened the door where the shooter was hiding. As he said, nine officers were out in the hallway three minutes after the attack, and at least two were armed with rifles and a body shield.
“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from (entering rooms) 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” he said.
“The officers have weapons; the children had none. The officers had body armor; the children had none. The officers had training; the subject had none,” he continued.
