This is just horrible.
Seriously, awful.
This week has been one of the worst in some time. We are mourning.. we are angry.. we are sad.
What makes this entire situation worse is new information that maybe police could have done more to stop Salvador Ramos before he killed as many as he did in Uvlade’s Robb Elementary.
New information today has created more public anger:
While taking questions from reporters during Friday’s news conference, Col. Steven McCraw of the Texas Department of Public Safety criticized some aspects of the police response to the shooting, in particular regarding the time it took for officers to engage with the gunman.
“A decision was made that this was a barricaded subject situation,” McCraw said of the incident commander’s “thought process” at the time.
Rather than immediately try to breach the classroom and engage with the gunman, McCraw said the commander — who he later identified as the school district’s chief of police — decided that “there was time to retrieve the keys, and wait for a tactical team with the equipment to go ahead and breach the door and take on the subject.”
“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period. There’s no excuse for that. But again, I wasn’t there,” he added.“We believe there should have been an entry as soon as you can,” McCraw continued. “When there’s an active shooter, the rules change.”
Just awful.