This horrific story keeps getting more and more tragic and baffling.
NBC is now reporting that the dozens of local police and federal agents on the scene of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX were under orders from the chief not to enter the classroom — for over an hour — even though the shooter was still active and shooting kids inside. Somehow these orders were obeyed by dozens of armed officers on the scene.
Border patrol agents in tactical gear arrived at the scene and initially fell in line. But after a half hour of sporadic shooting and God only knows how many more kids dying from shots and lack of medical attention, the federal officers decided to disobey and storm the classroom, where they took fire and killed the shooter. From NBC:
Federal agents who went to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday to confront a gunman who killed 19 children were told by local police to wait and not enter the school — and then decided after about half an hour to ignore that initial guidance and find the shooter, say two senior federal law enforcement officials.
According to the officials, agents from BORTAC, the Customs and Border Protection tactical unit, and ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arrived on the scene between noon and 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday. Local law enforcement asked them to wait, and then instructed HSI agents to help pull children out of the windows.
The BORTAC team, armed with tactical gear, at first did not move toward the gunman. After approximately 30 minutes passed, however, the federal agents opted of their own volition to lead the "stack" of officers inside the school and take down the shooter.
Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Friday that Peter Arredondo, the chief of police for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, had stopped at least 19 officers from breaking into the school as the gunman opened fire for at least an hour.
This is absolutely maddening.
So if the details don't change AGAIN, here is the new timeline, as compiled by NBC and the Wall Street Journal:
- 11:28 a.m.: The shooter crashed his grandmother's truck into a ditch next to Robb Elementary School. He had just shot her in the face at her house. He exits the vehicle and begins firing at people at a funeral home across the street.
- 11:30 a.m.: A 911 call was placed by someone reporting the shots. The shooter then climbed a chain-link fence onto school grounds and began firing outside the school.
- Either 11:33 (NBC) or 11:40 (WSJ): The shooter entered the school unimpeded via a back door that was propped open and began shooting in classrooms 111 and 112, which were connected.
- Just 2 minutes after the shooter entered the school: At least three police officers entered the same door the gunman did.
- Just 10 minutes after the shooter entered the school: As many as 19 officers had arrived and were in the hallway outside the active shooting scene.
- Between noon and 12:15 p.m.: Federal border patrol agents, armed with tactical gear, arrived on scene. They are told by the local police chief not to enter the classroom. They obey for approximately half an hour.
- Either 12:40 p.m. (WSJ) or 12:50 p.m. (NBC): The border patrol agents defy orders from the local police chief and stormed the classroom after, confusingly, having to find a staff member with a key to the door. They exchanged fire with the gunman and killed him.
You are not reading that timeline incorrectly.
Numerous police were at the scene, within feet of the shooter, just 2 minutes after he entered the school and began firing. Dozens of police were at the scene just 8 minutes later. About 20 minutes after that, federal agents armed with tactical gear were on the scene. And it wasn't until another half hour later that they entered the classroom to engage the shooter.
Not one armed officer entered the classroom where little kids were being massacred until over an hour after they began arriving at the scene.
The gunman fired over 100 shots and murdered 19 little kids and 2 teachers.
None of this makes any sense and we need answers.
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