Failures of Police in Uvalde School Shooting

A Texas law enforcement official said that there were more than enough armed police officers wearing body armor to stop the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, three minutes after it began. But instead, it took about an hour and 14 minutes from when officers arrived at the school to when they entered through the door and ended the standoff with the gunman. These were armed officers wearing bulletproof vests…while the children inside had nothing.

“I don’t care if you have on flip-flops and Bermuda shorts, you go in,” Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said in testimony at a state Senate hearing. The on-scene commander decided to prioritize the lives of the officers over the lives of defenseless children. The decision to hold police back from the scene went against much of what law enforcement has learned in the two decades since the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado in which 13 people were killed in 1999.

Police officers need far more training when it comes to school shooting situations. Every state patrol car in America should contain shields and door-breaching tools to get into buildings much more efficiently. This shooting was extremely heartbreaking…and the fact that more could have been done earlier on is even more disheartening.