Texas police have admitted that key elements in their response to the shooting at the elementary school which saw 21 people die were wrong.
Gunman Salvador Rolando Ramos, 18, was armed with a gun when he stormed Robb Elementary School on May 24 and shot dead 19 children and two teachers.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw admitted on Friday that the tactical decisions made during the response to the events leading up to the shooting were wrong.
“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision. There’s no excuse for that,” he said. “A decision was made that this was a barricaded subject situation, there was time to retrieve the keys and wait for a tactical team with the equipment to go ahead and breach the door and take on the subject at that point.
“That was the decision, that was the thought process at that particular point in time.”
According to audio evidence from the time of the shooting, Ramos fired almost 100 shots inside classrooms 111 and 112 about 11.30am.
Two minutes later, three officers entered the school from the same back door Ramos came in from.
About 12.03pm, there were at least 19 officers standing in the hallways but it was only at 12.50 pm that police used a key from the janitor to open the classroom doors.
It was then they shot Ramos dead.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott slammed the police for their response telling them to “get to the very seconds of exactly what happened with 100 per cent accuracy and explain it to the public and most importantly to the victims who have been devastated,”
“There will be ongoing investigations that detail exactly who knew what when, who was in charge and what strategy (was used), why was it that particular strategy was employed, why were other strategies not employed?” he said.
“Bottom line would be, why did they not choose the strategy that would have been best to get in there to eliminate the killer and to rescue the children.”
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