A senior official in the US state of Texas revealed, on Friday, that the police made a “wrong decision” not to quickly enter the elementary school in Yuvaldi, where the shooter holed up and committed a massacre.
Authorities said terrified children called 911 at least six times from a class at the school and pleaded with police to intervene.
“Looking back… when I sit quietly now, I see that the decision was not right… it was a wrong decision,” Colonel Stephen McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a news conference.
“From what we know, we believe it should have been entered as quickly as possible,” he added, answering questions regarding why police were waiting for support to enter the school.
The police received many calls from many children in the two affected classrooms, including a call from a girl at 12:16 pm, more than half an hour before the police intervened at 12:50.
During one of her first calls, the student, who confirmed several deaths, said, “Please, send the police now.”
But 19 policemen, at the scene, waited for the arrival of a border police intervention unit for regarding an hour following Salvador Ramos’ shooter stormed the building on Tuesday, where the 18-year-old killed 19 children and two teachers.
Urged by journalists to explain the much-criticized delay, the official said that police thought “there might be no survivors.”
But during one of the calls, a female student told the police that “eight to nine students are alive,” McCraw revealed.
Videos released showed parents in a frenzy outside the school begging police to storm the building during the attack, to the point that police had to handcuff some of them.
Standard police security protocols recommend dealing with an active school shooter without delay, which McCraw acknowledged Friday.
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