UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Nearly 20 officers stood for about 45 minutes in the hallway outside the adjoining Texas classrooms where the gunman killed students and teachers this week before U.S. Border Patrol agents unlocked the door to confront and kill him, authorities said Friday.
At least some of the 911 calls made during the Tuesday attack on Robb Elementary School in Uvalde came from inside the connected classrooms where 18-year-old Salvador Ramos was holed up, Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said during a contentious news conference.
The commander at the scene believed Ramos was barricaded inside and that the children were not at risk, McCraw said.
“It was the wrong decision,” he said.
McCraw released new details about the attack in which Ramos killed 19 children teachers, though his motive remains unclear.
The Border Patrol agents eventually used a master key to open the locked door of the classroom where they confronted and killed Ramos, he said.
There was a barrage of gunfire shortly after Ramos entered the classroom where officers eventually killed him, but that shots were “sporadic” for much of the 48 minutes when officers waited in the hallway, McCraw said. He said investigators do not know if or how many children died during that time.
They said they rushed in. We didn’t see that. Javier Cazares, mother of fourth-grader Jacklyn Cazares, who was killed in the attack
Throughout the attack, teachers and children repeatedly called 911 asking for help, including a girl who pleaded: “Please send the police now,” McCraw said.
Questions have mounted over the amount of time it took officers to enter the school to confront the gunman.
It was 11:28 a.m. Tuesday when Ramos’ Ford pickup slammed into a ditch behind the low-slung Texas school and the driver jumped out carrying an AR-15-style rifle.
Twelve minutes after that, authorities say, Ramos entered the school and found his way to the fourth-grade classroom where he killed the 21 victims.
But it wasn’t until 12:58 p.m. that law enforcement radio chatter said Ramos had been killed and the siege was over.
What happened in those 90 minutes, in a working-class neighborhood near the edge of the town of Uvalde, has fueled mounting public anger and scrutiny over law enforcement’s response to Tuesday’s rampage.
“They say they rushed in,” said Javier Cazares, whose fourth-grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, and who raced to the school as the massacre unfolded. “We didn’t see that.”
Friday’s briefing came only after authorities spent three days providing often conflicting and incomplete information.
According to the new timeline provided by McCraw, After crashing his truck, Ramos fired on two people coming out of a nearby funeral home, officials said.
