There is no excuse for the number of deaths that we saw come from the Uvalde shooting in Texas recently. Police were there and had the ability to act, but failed to do so. As a result, nearly two-dozen people died, most of them children.
It’s like I’ve already said in previous writings, many of these men need to lose their jobs. This is even more evident based on what we’re learning now.
New details reveal that multiple police officers who were armed with rifles and ballistic shields were inside of the school within 20 minutes, yet they waited for approximately an hour before breaching the classroom that the shooter was in.
These men acted cowardly and because of such, they are partly responsible for the deaths of these children. I’m not afraid to say that. Yes, the gunman was primarily responsible, but the police officers have a role to play in their deaths as well by failing to act.
According to the New York Post,
Surveillance footage from inside the school showed the armed officers standing inside a hallway at 11:52 a.m. after gunman Salvador Ramos broke into the school at 11:33 a.m. through an exterior door that had failed to automatically lock.
The newly reported account contradicts earlier reports that Uvalde school district police Chief Pete Arredondo, who was in charge of the police response, was waiting for tactical gear and a protective shield to move on the gunman.
“There were 19 officers in there,” Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a media briefing days after the mass shooting. “In fact, there were plenty of officers to do whatever needed to be done, with one exception — the incident commander inside believed they needed more equipment and more officers to do a tactical breach at that point.”
School security footage as well as police body camera video shows the officers had enough firepower and protection to take out the gunman much sooner than they did, according to the American-Statesman.
There’s no telling what else will come out of this investigation, but this alone is enough reason to fire them from their jobs as police officers since they can’t even protect children.
Investigators believe this is significant because it indicates they had more than enough firepower and protection to enter the classroom before they did. Officers were growing impatient far sooner: “If there’s kids in there we need to go in there,” one said on body camera video.
— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) June 20, 2022