Whatever Could Go Wrong, Did

"Of course it was not the right decision, it was the wrong decision, period. With the benefit of hindsight, of course, it was not the right decision."

"[The incident commander on-site Tuesday, who was a member of the school district's own police force, had determined that by the time three Uvalde police officers entered the school at 11:35 a.m., the situation was no longer an active shooting but a barricaded shooter scenario and] no more children were at risk."

"Obviously, based upon the information we have, there were children in that classroom that were at risk, and it was, in fact, still an active shooter situation."

Col. Steven McCraw, director, Texas Department of Public Safety

Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, arrives at a news conference in front of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Friday. McCraw admitted that police made the wrong decision in not confronting the gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at the school sooner. ( Omar Ornelas/USA Today Network/Reuters)

A worse scenario cannot be imagined, that while children were desperately trying to hide from an armed marauder out to murder as many vulnerable young children as he could for a reason only a twisted mind could comprehend, police waited an interminable length of time even while trapped children were trustingly calling 911 begging to be rescued from their nightmare. For an hour they huddled together in terror that the man with the semi-automatic rifle would notice them, sending out messages that were futile, while police officers waited, against all operational instructions in coping with situations like this.

Now the crisis is over, there will be 19 funerals for children aged 9 and 10 who the killer did see when he barricaded himself along with his victims in a grade four classroom at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and another two funerals where the city will grieve for the deaths of two of the teachers whose job it was to teach those children. No fewer than 19 officers waited in a hallway, while an hour elapsed and the rampage continued.

Contrary to initial reports following the deadly attack in the elementary school, no armed school officer was in attendance that day and there was no one to challenge the intention of a black-clad man wielding a semi-automatic weapon from entering the school. Entry, in fact, took place, against all entrenched security protocols of the school board, through an unlocked door at the school, a door furthermore, that had been propped open by someone at the school.

When police did arrive at the school in response to emergency calls when Salvador Ramos, 18 had gained entrance, they retreated immediately they came under fire. On the arrival of specially emergency- equipped federal agents they were refused entrance to the school, by local police. 

During which time two children in hiding, hoping not to be noticed by the gunman, called 911 repeatedly with one of the children informing police of their situation, whispering that there were others dead and "eight to nine" students still alive. How utterly horrifying this must have been for those children; young as they were to be in that deadly situation, knowing their lives hung in the balance of luck, the evidence all around them that luck failed some of their classmates.

Police officers help children run to safety after escaping from a window at the school. (Pete Luna/Uvalde Leader-News/Reuters)

After the passage of an impossibly-endless hour when time must have seemed to stand still, a tactical unit led by border agents entered a classroom where the gunman was killed. Videos shot minutes following the shooter entering the building show police holding back frantic parents, and handcuffing some. Over 100 rounds were fired by Ramos by the time seven police officers entered the school at about 11:40 a.m. 

The 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado led to guidelines widely implemented directing officers to pursue shooters without waiting for special backup. "The first two to five responding officers should form a single team and enter the structure", orders the Texas Police Chiefs Association's own policy manual. One schoolchild spoke of Ramos having "backed the teacher into the classroom --- looked her right in the eye, and said 'Goodnight', and then shot her and killed her".

Some children had great presence of mind to try to save themselves as did 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo who rubbed a classmate's blood over herself in pretense of death, in case the gunman returned to her classroom. Parents at the rear of the school building are seen in a video complaining that police were doing nothing. Angeli Rose-Gomez, whose children were in the school, was handcuffed by federal marshals when she and others pushed police to intervene.