Law enforcement had enough officers on the scene of the Uvalde school massacre to have stopped the gunman three minutes after he entered the building, the head of Texas DPS said, calling it an 'abject failure.'
The decision by police to hold back went against much of what law enforcement has learned in the two decades since the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado in which 13 people were killed in 1999, McCraw said.
State police initially said the gunman entered the school through an exterior door that had been propped open by a teacher. However, McCraw said the teacher had closed the door, but unbeknownst to her, it could be locked only from the outside. The gunman “walked straight through,” McCraw said. "Without Texans knowing what happened, we’re all in the dark because we still, to a greater part, don’t really know what happened at Robb Elementary," said Bettencourt.
Later in the day, the Uvalde City Council voted unanimously against giving Arredondo, who is a council member, a leave of absence from appearing at public meetings. Relatives of the shooting victims had pleaded with city leaders to instead fire him. But McCraw said Tuesday that the amount of time that elapsed before officers entered the classroom was “intolerable.”
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