The Colorado Springs Gazette final

Gunman was inside school for a full hour

Police response time leaves questions

UVALDE, TEXAS • The gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers crossed the grounds of the Texas elementary school without being confronted and entered the building through an unlocked door, authorities said Thursday, offering another new account of the events that preceded the massacre.

Salvador Ramos, 18, was barricaded inside a classroom at Robb Elementary School for an hour before a tactical team finally breached the room and fatally shot him, police confirmed. Parents outside implored officers to storm the building.

The Uvalde school district

has a locked classroom door policy as a security measure. The latest details from officials contradicted some early statements and raised fresh questions about the chronology of events, the speed of law enforcement’s response and the school’s safety precautions.

Ramos crashed his pickup truck outside the school at 11:28 a.m. on Tuesday, fired several shots at two bystanders across the street and walked into the school at 11:40 a.m., Victor Escalon, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a news conference.

Escalon said two responding officers entered the school four minutes later but took cover after Ramos fired multiple rounds at them. He barricaded himself in a fourth-grade classroom, where he shot his victims, mostly 9- and 10-yearolds, in the deadliest U.S. school shooting in nearly a decade.

Asked if officers should have gone in sooner, Escalon said, “That’s a tough question,” adding that authorities would offer more information as the investigation proceeds. He described a chaotic scene after the initial exchange of gunfire, with officers calling for backup and evacuating students and staff.

The newly detailed account came hours after videos emerged showing desperate parents outside the school during the attack, pleading with officers to storm the building, with some fathers having to be restrained.

In one video posted on Facebook by a man named Angel

Ledezma, parents can be seen breaking through yellow police tape and yelling at officers to go into the building.

“It’s already been an hour, and they still can’t get all the kids out,” Ledezma said in the video. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Another video posted on Youtube showed officers restraining at least one adult. One woman can be heard saying, “Why let the children die? There’s shooting in there.”

“We got guys going in to get kids,” one officer is heard telling the crowd. “They’re working.”

There was no armed police officer stationed at the school, Escalon told reporters. The gunman fired more than 25 shots at the outset of the attack, the majority of times he fired, Escalon said.

The massacre, the latest in a yearslong string of mass shootings, has reignited a national debate over the country’s gun laws.

President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats have vowed to push for new restrictions, despite resistance from Republicans.

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2022-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.gazette.com/article/282561611797039

The Gazette, Colorado Springs