Financial Post

2022-07-30 00:28:44 By : Ms. Jancy Huang

Footage shows dozens of armed officers gathering around the hallway but failing to storm the classroom with gunman

Surveillance video of the law enforcement response to the Uvalde school shooting shows officers stalling for 77 agonizing minutes as 19 children and two teachers were killed.

The footage, edited to remove the sound of children screaming, shows dozens of armed officers gathering around the hallway but failing to storm the classroom with the gunman inside. As the clock ticks on, one officer stops for hand sanitizer while two others greet each other with a fist bump.

The new video, published by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV, gives a sense of how officers failed to mount a response that could have stopped the shooter and saved children’s lives.

The newspaper defended publishing the video in a note, saying, in part: “Our goal is to continue to bring to light what happened at Robb Elementary, which the families and friends of the Uvalde victims have long been asking for.”

It starts with killer Salvadore Ramos crashing his grandmother’s truck near Robb Elementary and entering the school. The clip is followed by a view of the school building while a recording of a panicked woman calling 911 plays.

“The kids are running. Oh my God. Get in your rooms, get in your rooms,” the woman yells as shots ring out. She is not identified in the video.

Next, Ramos, dressed in all black, is seen walking through the school with a rifle and looking around before exiting the frame. As he turns the hall, a child peers around the corner and sees Ramos, who unleashes countless rounds off-camera. The frightened child runs back to where he came from, exiting the frame.

Ramos fires his weapon for more than two minutes in two classrooms, audio analysis has shown. Authorities have stated that Ramos fired more than 100 rounds.

About three minutes later, according to the video, police enter the school. Some are seen hunched down and racing toward the gunman, and others look around the corner. Officers point to one another, seemingly signaling to each other where to stand before more gunfire booms throughout the school’s hall.

Police who ran toward the gunman retreat back to where the officers entered. Thirty-one minutes later, according to the video’s time stamp, more heavily armed officers enter the scene, some with heavy weapons and shields. More than a dozen are seeing carrying long rifles.

Around 45 minutes after they first entered the school, the officers move down the hallway toward the gunman. For several minutes, multiple officers walk up and down the hallway. No one attempts an entry into the classroom.

About an hour into the shooting, two officers are seen briefly hugging each other while, seconds later, a third officer enters the camera from the left and applies hand sanitizer. This is shortly followed by a fist bump between two sworn officers.

Several minutes later, gunshots ring out, which the Statesman attributes to the shots that killed Ramos. The 18-year-old was in the school for more than an hour before officers shot him down.

Researchers from the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University, which specializes in active-shooter training, found tactical errors and potential breaches of protocol in a review of the police response to the deadliest school shooting in the United States in nearly a decade.

“Maintaining position or even pushing forward to a better spot to deliver accurate return fire would have undoubtedly been dangerous, and there would have been a high probability that some of the officers would have been shot or even killed,” the report said.

“However, the officers also would likely have been able to stop the attacker and then focus on getting immediate medical care to the wounded.”

The report outlines several missed opportunities to stop the shooter, including an instance where first responding officer drove through the school parking lot “at a high rate of speed” and missed the shooter, who was still in the same parking lot.

Police were carrying radios that would not communicate. Classroom doors had locks that could not be secured from inside. And the school district’s police chief, Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, made error after error throughout the catastrophe, according to testimony from McCraw, the Texas Department of Public Safety director. McCraw criticized the decision to release the video, saying families of the slain and wounded should have had a chance to view it first.

Additional reporting from Washington Post

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