Investigators question delayed police response in Texas school shooting

US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden at a makeshift memorial outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Pic/AFP

Investigators in Texas were seeking to determine on Saturday how critical mistakes were made in response to the deadly Uvalde shooting, including why nearly 20 police officers remained outside a school classroom as children made 911 calls for help.

Why the officers waited in the hallway nearly an hour before entering and fatally shooting the gunman is at the heart of an ongoing probe by the Texas Department of Public Safety into the massacre of 19 children and two teachers in the deadliest U.S. school shooting in nearly a decade. Investigators are also still searching for a motive for the attack. Salvador Ramos, a high school dropout, had no criminal record and no history of mental illness, although threatening messages he sent on social media are now coming to light.

Kids call for help

At least two children placed 911 calls from a pair of adjoining fourth-grade classrooms after 18-year-old Ramos entered on Tuesday with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, Colonel Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said earlier this week. "He's in room 112," a girl whispered on the phone at 12:03 p.m. The same girl had implored the 911 operator to "please send the police now" at 12:43 p.m. and again four minutes later. At 12:51, or more than 45 minutes after she made her first 911 call, a U.S. Border Patrol-led tactical team finally stormed in and ended the siege at the Robb Elementary School.

In all, at least eight calls to emergency services were placed from inside the room while law enforcement waited in the hallway. The on-site commander, the chief of the school district's police department, mistakenly determined that Ramos was barricaded inside and that children were no longer at immediate risk, giving officers time to prepare, McCraw said.

"It was the wrong decision, period," McCraw said, acknowledging that standard law enforcement protocols call for police to confront an active school shooter without delay, rather than wait for backup or more firepower. Border Patrol tactical agents at the scene were frustrated with a lack of clear direction from the commander, believing it delayed efforts to end the attack, a person familiar with the matter said. When Border Patrol agents entered the classroom behind a ballistic shield, the shooter emerged from a closet firing at them, the person said. Ramos was shot and killed.

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