Sly, just for you, in case you think there is no room for improvement when it comes to law enforcement:
Uvalde Residents Voice Frustration Over Shooting Response - WSJ
Videos circulating on social media show parents confronting police outside the school; ‘The police were doing nothing’
UVALDE, Texas—Residents here expressed anger and frustration Thursday about the time it took for law enforcement to end an elementary-school shooting in which 19 children and two teachers died, as videos circulated on social media showing parents confronting police outside the building.
“The police were doing nothing,” said Angeli Rose Gomez, who after learning about the shooting drove 40 miles to Robb Elementary School, where her children are in second and third grade. “They were just standing outside the fence. They weren’t going in there or running anywhere.”
State officials have said that local police were at the school within a few minutes of the gunman entering the building and exchanged gunfire with him, but they were unable to gain access to a classroom where he barricaded himself, firing on officers.
Ms. Gomez, a farm supervisor, said that she was one of numerous parents who began encouraging—first politely, and then with more urgency—police and other law enforcement to enter the school. After a few minutes, she said, federal marshals approached her and put her in handcuffs, telling her she was being arrested for intervening in an active investigation.
Ms. Gomez convinced local Uvalde police officers whom she knew to persuade the marshals to set her free. Around her, the scene was frantic. She said she saw a father tackled and thrown to the ground by police and a third pepper-sprayed. Once freed from her cuffs, Ms. Gomez made her distance from the crowd, jumped the school fence, and ran inside to grab her two children. She sprinted out of the school with them.
Videos circulated on social media Wednesday and Thursday of frantic family members trying to get access to Robb Elementary as the attack was unfolding, some of them yelling at police who blocked them from entering.
“Shoot him or something!” a woman’s voice can be heard yelling on a video, before a man is heard saying about the officers, “They’re all just [expletive] parked outside, dude. They need to go in there.”
Parents can be heard yelling to each other that their kids were inside the school and that they needed to get in. A woman can be heard yelling at a police officer, “He’s one person! Take him out!”
Texas state trooper Juan Maldonado said he went to the school with a friend whose wife was one of the teachers slain in the shooting.
He said police were already on the scene, indicating a fast response time, and that it appeared they had set up a perimeter around the building.
Mr. Maldonado said he and the friend were able to enter the building to get students out and showed cuts on his forearms that he said were from breaking windows to assist in that effort.
“I don’t want to critique anything; we’re here to be supportive of the community,” he said.
Authorities with DPS and other agencies have said that the shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was in the school for approximately 40 minutes, most of that time barricaded inside a classroom firing at police who tried to gain access to it. An elite Border Patrol tactical unit known as Bortac eventually gained access to the classroom and killed Ramos.
Inside the classroom, Ramos killed 19 children and two teachers. An additional 11 children and seven adults, including three law-enforcement officers, were injured, though officials didn’t say how many of them sustained gunshot wounds.
DPS said Uvalde police were on the scene at the school within a few minutes, with support from other agencies, including state troopers close behind. The agency released conflicting information about whether a school police officer who first encountered Ramos fired at him. Authorities first said the pair exchanged gunfire as Ramos was running into the school, then later said shots might not have been fired at that time.
The agency said two police officers engaged with Ramos as he reached the classroom where he barricaded himself, and both were shot and wounded.
After the confrontation ended with Ramos dead, school buses began to arrive to transport students from the school, according to Ms. Gomez. She said she saw police use a Taser on a local father who approached the bus to collect his child.
“They didn’t do that to the shooter, but they did that to us. That’s how it felt,” Ms. Gomez said.
Thursday’s rising anger came after more than 1,000 people from this grieving city gathered Wednesday night for a prayer vigil.
“God is here with us tonight,” Pastor Tony Gruben, of Baptist Temple Church, told the people gathered at the Uvalde County Fairplex. “God still loves you and God still loves those little children.”
Community members packed the stands, spilled into the aisles and stood on the dirt rodeo floor where the ministers preached from a stage under flags of Texas and the U.S. White cowboy hats dotted the audience along with scores of maroon T-shirts that said “Uvalde Coyotes,” the high school mascot. A phalanx of police officers stood stone-faced watching the crowd, and scores of journalists from around the world aimed their cameras and beamed the scene around the globe.
The massacre represented the deadliest school shooting since the slayings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., nearly 10 years ago.
Sadie Gurman contributed to this article. |
