Las Criticism of police action during the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde increased this Thursday in this town in Texas (USA), where local authorities recognized that the attacker entered the building without facing opposition.
While in the central square of Uvalde the solemn acts in memory of the 19 children and two teachers killed At Tuesday’s shooting, a few miles away, authorities were facing increasing questions about their response to what happened.
“Our job is to report the facts and have answers, but we still don’t have them,” the regional director for South Texas of the state Department of Public Safety, Víctor Escalón, admitted at a press conference.
GROWING FRUSTRATION
The impression that the Police acted slowly or improperly has been reinforced on social networks and among some residents of Uvalde, especially after the authorities confirmed that the attacker spent up to an hour barricaded in a classroom before being shot dead by officers.
Several videos recorded on Tuesday circulate on the internet in which parents and relatives of students are seen in the vicinity of the school screaming and confronting the Police for, in their opinion, not intervening while the shooting was taking place inside.
Escalón indicated this Thursday that, contrary to what sources from the school district indicated hours before, there was no confrontation between a security guard and the attacker, Salvador Ramoswhen he entered Robb Elementary School around 11:40 a.m. on Tuesday (12:40 Chilean time).
“It’s not true. (Ramos) He entered the school without opposition,” Escalón stressed.
The state official also acknowledged that “apparently” the lock of one of the doors of the school would have been found open when Ramos arrived at the center, for reasons that are still being investigated.
ONE HOUR INSIDE THE SCHOOL
After shooting his grandmother in the face at her home, Ramos got into a vehicle and drove to the vicinity of the elementary school, where his car crashed around 11:28 a.m.
From there he walked with a rifle and ammunition for twelve minutes until he entered the school, around 11:40 local time. Four minutes later, the police stormed the school.
On his way to the school on foot, Ramos shot two people who were in a funeral home across the street, without causing any injuries.
When local police officers arrived at the scene, they heard shots and identified the classroom where the assailant was, but they were unable to access it because Ramos opened fire on them every time they tried.
Those agents called for reinforcements and began the evacuation of students and teachers from the rest of the school, while Ramos remained barricaded in a classroom where he fired indiscriminately at the attendees, killing the 19 children and two teachers and injuring many others.
It was around 12:40 p.m. when Border Patrol special agents arrived and managed to shoot down the shooter.
“HOW CAN IT BE?”
Many residents of Uvalde did not understand why, despite the fact that the school district had recently doubled its security budget and trained officers to respond to shootingsthere was no faster response on Tuesday.
“We have to train our police officers to be able to respond to something like this instead of waiting,” he told Efe Pastor Daniel Myers, who went this Thursday to pray in the central square of Uvalde, where 21 crosses have been installed in honor of those killed.
Myers said that on Tuesday he approached the school and found “a hostage situation”, in which no one explained to the relatives what was happening until the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, went on television and “announced the number of victims”.
“How could it be that we didn’t know before? There was a grandmother at 10 at night who still didn’t know where her loved one was”lament.
His complaint was similar to that of Ryan Ramírez, whose ten-year-old daughter Alithia died in the shooting and who at a vigil this Wednesday said he was “quite upset” because “most of the parents found out” about what happened to their children “around 11 at night” on Tuesday.
Myers, who this Thursday brought food to a family that had lost two children in the shooting, insisted that the explanations of the authorities, for now, are not enough.
“I hope that the Uvalde Police Department has learned something from all this, and that it undertakes changes,” the pastor stressed.
Meanwhile, the families continued this Thursday the preparations for the funerals of the victims, which still do not have a fixed date, and The White House announced that the President of the United States, Joe Biden, will visit Uvalde this Sunday with his wife, Jill.
And the city added a new sad news, confirming that Joe Garcia, the husband of one of the two teachers killed on Tuesday, Irma Garcia, He died this Thursday of a heart attack due to sadness and left four children orphans, ages 23, 19, 15 and 13.