As more details emerge about the Robb Elementary School Shooting, more questions are being raised about police officers’ actions that day.
Gunman Salvador Ramos was inside the school for more than an hour before officers fatally shot him. He tragically killed 19 children and two teachers in a fourth-grade classroom during that time.
Law enforcement officers’ inaction could lead to lawsuits, disciplinary action, or the possibility of criminal charges.
Uvalde School District police chief Pete Arredondo believed the attack was over and asked officers to wait. The police chief’s decision to treat the situation as a “barricaded subject” instead of an “active shooter” left officers waiting in a school hallway. Authorities believed that Ramos was barricaded in an adjoining classroom and was no longer an active shooter.
Officials told the Associated Press that officers from other agencies were pleading with the school police chief to let them into the school. They believed the children were in danger. Audio recordings from the scene revealed the officers telling the chief that the shooter was still active and needed to be stopped. The chief ignored their pleas.
Gov. Greg Abbott initially praised law enforcement but then publicly stated that he had been misled about police response time. He promised to open an investigation.
“The bottom line would be: Why did they not choose the strategy that would have been best to get in there and to eliminate the killer and to rescue the children?” he said.
Criminal charges are rarely pursued against police officers in school shootings. The AP noted the lone exception is the resource officer that hid during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. Seventeen people were killed in the shooting.
