America is more than a bit fucked up.
Uvalde TX school shooting
Re: Uvalde TX school shooting
America is more than a bit fucked up.
Re: Uvalde TX school shooting
Surveillance footage shows that police never tried to open a door to two classrooms at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde in the 77 minutes between the time a gunman entered the rooms and massacred 21 people and officers finally stormed in and killed him, according to a law enforcement source close to the investigation.
Investigators believe the 18-year-old gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at the school on May 24 could not have locked the door to the connected classrooms from the inside, according to the source.
All classroom doors at Robb Elementary are designed to lock automatically when they are closed so that the only way to enter from the outside is with a key, the source said. Police might have assumed the door was locked, but the latest evidence suggests it may have been open the whole time, possibly due to a malfunction, the source said.
The surveillance footage indicates gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, was able to open the door to classroom 111 and enter with an assault-style rifle, the source said.
Another door led to classroom 112.
Ramos entered Robb Elementary at 11:33 a.m. that day through an exterior door that a teacher had pulled shut but that didn’t lock automatically as it was supposed to, indicating another malfunction in door locks at the school.
Police finally opened the door to classroom 111 and killed Ramos at 12:50 p.m. Whether the door was unlocked all along remains under investigation.
Regardless, officers had access the entire time to a “halligan” — a crowbar-like tool that could have opened the door to the classrooms even if it was locked, the source said.
Two minutes after Ramos entered the building, three Uvalde police officers chased him inside. Footage shows that Ramos fired rounds inside classrooms 111 and 112, briefly exited into the hallway and then re-entered through the door, the source said.
Ramos then shot at the officers through the closed door, grazing two of them with shrapnel. The officers retreated to wait for backup and heavy tactical equipment rather than force their way into the classrooms.
Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police chief and the on-scene incident commander, has said he spent more than an hour in the hallway of the school. He told the Texas Tribune that he called for tactical gear, a sniper and keys to get inside. He said he held officers back from the door to the classrooms for 40 minutes to avoid gunfire.
When a custodian brought a large key ring, Arredondo said he tried dozens of the keys but none worked.
But Arredondo was not trying those keys in the door to classrooms 111 and 112, where Ramos was holed up, according to the law enforcement source. Rather, he was trying to locate a master key by using the various keys on doors to other classrooms nearby, the source and the Texas Tribune article said.
As the investigation has unfolded, law enforcement has changed the story of the massacre several times, adding to public confusion over how police responded to the mass shooting.
Days after the shooting, DPS said the exterior door that Ramos entered had been left propped open by a teacher. It wasn’t. She had closed it. And the agency also corrected early misinformation that school police shot at Ramos before he entered the school. No school police officers confronted him outside the school.
DPS and Uvalde city officials have refused to provide further details, citing an ongoing criminal investigation into the massacre by Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee.
The Texas Rangers, with assistance from the FBI, are investigating the police response. Separately, the Justice Department is conducting a “critical incident review” of the police response.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said he was upset by the new details.
“As more of the story comes out, I’m shocked like the rest of the country at the incompetence and dereliction of duty by multiple law enforcement agencies who failed to save those kids,” Castro said. “I’m also increasingly disturbed by what looks like an attempt to cover up the truth by state officials and the local police department who have refused to comply with requests to release information to the public.”
State Rep. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, whose district encompasses Uvalde, said he was unaware of the revelations about the door. If the door was unlocked the entire time — or if police could have forced their way in regardless — then people likely died unnecessarily, he said.
“If that’s true, we probably could have saved three or four extra children,” Gutierrez said. “The teacher possibly could have been saved. We know two kids had gunshot wounds that they bled out from. We know that one teacher was alive when they pulled her out and she died on the way to the hospital.”
Any law enforcement agency whose officers waited in the hallway for more than an hour “committed negligence,” he said, if the door could have easily been breached the entire time.
Gutierrez added that investigators should immediately clarify exactly how police responded — or failed to respond — to the massacre.
“What were the failures?” Gutierrez continued. “Were they communication failures? Were they human error failures? Were they system failures? Or was it simply something as simple as not turning a doorknob? We need to know that. And the fact that they are hiding all of this information from the public and community in Uvalde is just a tragedy.”
Investigators believe the 18-year-old gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at the school on May 24 could not have locked the door to the connected classrooms from the inside, according to the source.
All classroom doors at Robb Elementary are designed to lock automatically when they are closed so that the only way to enter from the outside is with a key, the source said. Police might have assumed the door was locked, but the latest evidence suggests it may have been open the whole time, possibly due to a malfunction, the source said.
The surveillance footage indicates gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, was able to open the door to classroom 111 and enter with an assault-style rifle, the source said.
Another door led to classroom 112.
Ramos entered Robb Elementary at 11:33 a.m. that day through an exterior door that a teacher had pulled shut but that didn’t lock automatically as it was supposed to, indicating another malfunction in door locks at the school.
Police finally opened the door to classroom 111 and killed Ramos at 12:50 p.m. Whether the door was unlocked all along remains under investigation.
Regardless, officers had access the entire time to a “halligan” — a crowbar-like tool that could have opened the door to the classrooms even if it was locked, the source said.
Two minutes after Ramos entered the building, three Uvalde police officers chased him inside. Footage shows that Ramos fired rounds inside classrooms 111 and 112, briefly exited into the hallway and then re-entered through the door, the source said.
Ramos then shot at the officers through the closed door, grazing two of them with shrapnel. The officers retreated to wait for backup and heavy tactical equipment rather than force their way into the classrooms.
Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police chief and the on-scene incident commander, has said he spent more than an hour in the hallway of the school. He told the Texas Tribune that he called for tactical gear, a sniper and keys to get inside. He said he held officers back from the door to the classrooms for 40 minutes to avoid gunfire.
When a custodian brought a large key ring, Arredondo said he tried dozens of the keys but none worked.
But Arredondo was not trying those keys in the door to classrooms 111 and 112, where Ramos was holed up, according to the law enforcement source. Rather, he was trying to locate a master key by using the various keys on doors to other classrooms nearby, the source and the Texas Tribune article said.
As the investigation has unfolded, law enforcement has changed the story of the massacre several times, adding to public confusion over how police responded to the mass shooting.
Days after the shooting, DPS said the exterior door that Ramos entered had been left propped open by a teacher. It wasn’t. She had closed it. And the agency also corrected early misinformation that school police shot at Ramos before he entered the school. No school police officers confronted him outside the school.
DPS and Uvalde city officials have refused to provide further details, citing an ongoing criminal investigation into the massacre by Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee.
The Texas Rangers, with assistance from the FBI, are investigating the police response. Separately, the Justice Department is conducting a “critical incident review” of the police response.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said he was upset by the new details.
“As more of the story comes out, I’m shocked like the rest of the country at the incompetence and dereliction of duty by multiple law enforcement agencies who failed to save those kids,” Castro said. “I’m also increasingly disturbed by what looks like an attempt to cover up the truth by state officials and the local police department who have refused to comply with requests to release information to the public.”
State Rep. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, whose district encompasses Uvalde, said he was unaware of the revelations about the door. If the door was unlocked the entire time — or if police could have forced their way in regardless — then people likely died unnecessarily, he said.
“If that’s true, we probably could have saved three or four extra children,” Gutierrez said. “The teacher possibly could have been saved. We know two kids had gunshot wounds that they bled out from. We know that one teacher was alive when they pulled her out and she died on the way to the hospital.”
Any law enforcement agency whose officers waited in the hallway for more than an hour “committed negligence,” he said, if the door could have easily been breached the entire time.
Gutierrez added that investigators should immediately clarify exactly how police responded — or failed to respond — to the massacre.
“What were the failures?” Gutierrez continued. “Were they communication failures? Were they human error failures? Were they system failures? Or was it simply something as simple as not turning a doorknob? We need to know that. And the fact that they are hiding all of this information from the public and community in Uvalde is just a tragedy.”
Re: Uvalde TX school shooting
Coward in charge
Re: Uvalde TX school shooting
Uvalde and Police "Duty"
Is there a legal cause of action to the police's lack of action?
Re: Uvalde TX school shooting
Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Steven McCraw ripped into the Uvalde school police chief's handling of last month's shooting at Robb Elementary School and said that some officers wanted to approach the gunman earlier, including a school district police officer whose wife was killed in the massacre.
That officer, Ruben Ruiz, received a call from his wife, Eva Mireles, who told him that she had been shot.
"He tried to move forward into the hallway," McCraw said Tuesday at a Senate hearing. "He was detained and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene."
That officer, Ruben Ruiz, received a call from his wife, Eva Mireles, who told him that she had been shot.
"He tried to move forward into the hallway," McCraw said Tuesday at a Senate hearing. "He was detained and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene."
While McCraw criticized the school police chief, Pete Arredondo, for not confronting the gunman sooner, several Texas state senators pressed McCraw on why DPS officers didn't take charge at the scene.
"I appear to be hypercritical of the on-scene commander, and I don't mean to be, but the facts are the facts, mistakes were made. It should never have happened that way," McCraw said Tuesday at the Texas State Capitol, accusing Arredondo of placing "the lives of officers before the lives of children."
"I appear to be hypercritical of the on-scene commander, and I don't mean to be, but the facts are the facts, mistakes were made. It should never have happened that way," McCraw said Tuesday at the Texas State Capitol, accusing Arredondo of placing "the lives of officers before the lives of children."
Nine officers, including at least two with rifles, entered the school at 11:36, three minutes after the gunman walked into the school and started firing into classrooms 111 and 112.
Additional officers arrived with the first ballistic shield at 11:52, while two more shields were at the scene shortly after noon.
Despite that, Arredondo waited over an hour for more firepower, tactical gear, and a key to unlock the classroom door, which wasn't necessary because the door was unlocked the whole time, McCraw said Tuesday.
Additional officers arrived with the first ballistic shield at 11:52, while two more shields were at the scene shortly after noon.
Despite that, Arredondo waited over an hour for more firepower, tactical gear, and a key to unlock the classroom door, which wasn't necessary because the door was unlocked the whole time, McCraw said Tuesday.
Re: Uvalde TX school shooting
Officers from at least eight law enforcement agencies were in the hallway outside the classrooms, the mayor said, and accused the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Col. Steven McCraw, of trying to direct attention away from the response by the department and its Texas Ranger Division.
"Col. McCraw has continued to -- whether you want to call it -- lie, leak, mislead or misstate information in order to distance his own troopers and Rangers from the response. Every briefing he leaves out the number of his own officers and Rangers that were on-scene that day," McLaughlin said.
"Col. McCraw has continued to -- whether you want to call it -- lie, leak, mislead or misstate information in order to distance his own troopers and Rangers from the response. Every briefing he leaves out the number of his own officers and Rangers that were on-scene that day," McLaughlin said.
Re: Uvalde TX school shooting
Uvalde mayor says he fears a cover-up of investigation into school massacre and calls on Texas Gov. Abbott to intervene
Expecting the truth from Abbott. What a dreamer. This leadership does everything except say it is the children's fault they got killed.Re: Uvalde TX school shooting
Knotical_MK6
"Cops did nothing as small kids got turned into minced meat and society is like meh"
After sandy hook it became pretty clear that Americans will ignore anything. (maybe unless it's a Muslim doing the killing?)
This is just going to keep happening, and Conservatives will fight to their last breath to make sure you can't change that