A first mea culpa. The police took a “bad decision” by not quickly entering the elementary school of Uvalde, where a shooter had taken refuge in a class who committed a massacre there, recognized Friday, May 27 the director of the Texas Department of Public Security.
“Looking back now, of course it wasn’t the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period.”, said Steven McCraw at a press conference, when asked about the much-criticized response time of the police. Nineteen officers at the scene waited for a Border Police intervention unit, about an hour after the shooter, Salvador Ramos, entered the building.
On the spot, the authorities explained their decision by the fact that the suspect was barricaded and not in motion.
New version of the font to #Uvalde to justify the lack of intervention against the killer: it was a barricaded shooter situation and not an active shooter. So we don’t attack… pic.twitter.com/lghciJCDM9
— Frederic Arnould (@FredericArnould) May 27, 2022
Joe Biden expected on site on Sunday
Nineteen children and two female teachers were killed on Tuesday by the 18-year-old gunman, who was eventually shot dead by law enforcement. The shooting, described as “new Sandy Hook” in the American press, in reference to the appalling massacre in a Connecticut elementary school in 2012, reawakened the traumas of America.
The White House has announced that US President Joe Biden will be there on Sunday with his wife, Jill, to “share the grief of the community” of this small town in Texas shaken by one of the worst shooting massacres in recent years in the country.