A report published this week indicates that law enforcement waited over an hour to enter a classroom where a gunman shot 19 children and two adults dead in Uvalde, Texas, last May because they did not want to face an AR-15 rifle.
“Even though some officers were armed with the same rifle, they opted to wait for the arrival of a Border Patrol SWAT team, with more protective body armor, stronger shields and more tactical training – even though the unit was based more than 60 miles away,” said the Texas Tribune report.
According to the outlet, it conducted an investigation into the massacre at Robb Elementary school based on police body cameras, emergency communications and interviews with investigators that had not yet been made public. Through the investigation, the paper “found officers had concluded that immediately confronting the gunman would be too dangerous.”
When officers saw bullets “tear through a classroom” they determined that they were outnumbered. Gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, was armed with a semiautomatic rifle designed for combat soldiers. Bullets from his gun grazed two officers who responded to the Uvalde elementary school in the head.
“You knew that it was definitely an AR,” Uvalde Police Department Sgt. Donald Page said in an interview cited by the Texas Tribune. “There was no way of going in. … We had no choice but to wait and try to get something that had better coverage where we could actually stand up to him.”
Overall, police waited 77 minutes to enter the area where Ramos opened fire. Their response has been called an “abject failure” by the Texas state police director. During that time, medical care was delayed for the victims, including three who left the building alive but later died.
Uvalde school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo was fired in August. In October, KRLD reported on Uvalde CISD parents holding vigils and camping out in an effort to get the district to suspend its entire police department.
“We’re gonna get scrutinized (for) why we didn’t go in there,” Arredondo said. “I know the firepower he had, based on what shells I saw, the holes in the wall in the room next to his. … The preservation of life, everything around (the gunman), was a priority.”
According to the Tribune, the Uvalde mass shooting does not mark the first shooting where law enforcement officials were wary of confronting gunmen armed with AR-15 rifles. It said that police also “hesitated” to confront perpetrators of the Pulse Nightclub massacre and the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre.
“We weren’t equipped to make entry into that room without several casualties,” Uvalde Police Department Detective Louis Landry said in an investigative interview cited by the Tribune. “Once we found out it was a rifle he was using, it was a different game plan we would have had to come up with. It wasn’t just going in guns blazing, the Old West style, and take him out.”
In response to the report, Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D) called for common sense gun laws. Per the Texas Tribune, Republican politicians – including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott – have been resistant to gun restrictions.
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