'We will circle back': Texas cop scoffs at reporter asking why officers took an hour to stop Uvalde shooter
By: Brandon Gage (Raw Story - Celebrating Years of Independent Journalism)
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Public aggravation with law enforcement's conflicting timeline of Tuesday's mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 students and two teachers and injured 17 others is mounting, and the latest press conference on how emergency teams responded to the assault only fueled further frustration.
The biggest mystery is why it took officers nearly an hour to neutralize the 18-year-old gunman, who police maintain barricaded himself in a classroom before he slaughtered nearly two dozen fourth-graders.
On Thursday, CNN's Crime and Justice Correspondent Shimon Prokupecz asked the officer addressing the media to clarify why it took authorities so long to reach the suspect.
"You guys have said that he was barricaded. Can you explain to us how he was barricaded and why you guys could not breach that door?" Prokupecz asked.
"I have taken all of your questions into consideration. We will be doing updates. We will be answering those questions," the officer replied.
"Can you answer that question now sir? Because we've been given a lot of bad information, so why don't you clear all of this up now and explain to us how is that your officers were in there for an hour, yes, rescuing people, but yet no one was able to get inside that room?" Prokupecz pressed again.
"Shimon, we will circle back with you. we will answer all your questions. We wanna give you the 'why.' That's our job, so give us time. I'm taking all your questions. I'm taking them back to talk to the team," the officer responded.
"Can you tell us how the door was barricaded?" Prokupecz followed up but to no avail.
"Thank you for being here. We'll talk soon," the official said.
Watch below via Acyn:
"We've been given a lot of bad information so why don't you clear all of this up now and explain to us how your officers were in there for an hour but yet no one was able to get inside that room?" pic.twitter.com/VIgTazT3I9
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 26, 2022
This has scandal written all over it.
we will circle back with you
The Psaki deflection. Clear sign he's lying or covering something up.
The Psaki deflection.
The difference here is that law enforcement will actually circle back after investigating.
It seems like some of the first responders valued their own safety over rescuing the kids.
Seems incongruous with the Republican position that the only way to stop these shootings is good guys with guns.
If the Wall Street Journal is right, they pepper sprayed at least parent trying to get into the school to rescue their kids during the hour the police left him holed up in the classroom.
It's unbelievable.
I hope that you not jumping to conclusions based on the demographics of the police.
I dont even know what the demographics of the police on the scene were.
Why are the majority of your comments snark directed at other members instead of addressing the topic?
That's a relief.
Snark, at you?
Your topic was "the Republican position that the only way to stop these shootings is good guys with guns" and that was incongruous with early reports on the local police. Do you really want to address snark?
that isnt snark, it is literally the Republican position.
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only way to stop these shootings is good guys with guns
Obviously we need more good guys with more guns. Expecting a 'gun free zone ' sign to do much good may be a tad unrealistic.
Obviously, there were good guys with guns at this scene and some of them are accused of not being so interested in the fight.
How do you identify these "good guys with guns", to make sure they won't become bad guys with guns?
I usually wait several days before putting much stock into statements floating around.
White hats
I think those two are way in the deep end of the 'only police should have guns' pool.
Is that before or after they are defunded?
See, that is why you look silly at times.
I own 2 handguns and am looking to purchase a 3rd. Difference is that I am over 18, and fully trained in the use and laws of firearms. The 2 I currently have are locked up and not accessible to anyone who happens to find them.
“Risking their own lives, these Border Patrol Agents and other officers put themselves between the shooter and children on the scene to draw the shooter’s attention away from potential victims and save lives, ” Espinosa continued in a series of follow-up tweets. "At least one Border Patrol Agent was wounded by the shooter during the exchange of gunfire. On-and-off duty Border Patrol Agents arrived on the scene to assist with transferring students safely to their families and providing medical support."
Yep - they "circled" around.
So some people now want law enforcement to kill people immediately? That is what "neutralize" means here.
People need to wait for the full story to come out before the start jumping the shark. If the suspect barricades himself in a class room with 24 children and a teacher doesn't that turn into a hostage situation? Little things like how the classroom is laid out; how the suspect has the children organized/detained (want to go guns blazing into a room where the cleanest targets are a bunch of kids?); and did the police really know that the suspect wouldn't negotiate?
Maybe law enforcement mishandled the situation. Maybe this will start another spate of defund the police (making leftists very happy). It will make sure that well qualified individuals stay well clear of law enforcement. That should improve policing; draw in the least desirable candidates- because anyone with half a brain and a little ability will find work elsewhere.
So law and enforcement and scary looking guns are on the Democrat's/left's shit list.
SSDD
If they hear gunfire from a classroom it's not a hostage situation though. To stand around outside the school while 19 kids are murdered is not really justifiable, if that's what happened. And as the coward of Broward demonstrated, it's not that impossible to believe that's what happened.
I agree we will have to wait and see as the initial reporting is almost always wrong. Yesterday the police said the killer exchanged gunfire with a cop on duty in the school before entering the school. Today, the police say he walked into the school through an unlocked door and their was no police officer on duty at the school.
The report will be interesting.
They said today that prior to entering the open door, he had had a face to face with the school "guard" went out and then came back in that unlocked door loaded for bear. Must not have had the rifle on him at the time I guess? And I just heard on the radio they can't confirm the exchange of gunfire with LEO
I agree that this seems to be a fluid picture and the whole story has not come out or been reported. It is possible that LE acquitted itself with courage and professionalism. I do know that it has been reported that parents were outside begging with police to enter the building with the sound of gunshots in the background.
It doesnt look good but we can wait for an explanation and go from there.
The report will be interesting.
I agree. We had a home invasion in out town where the cops took some heat for not rushing into the house as people thought they should have. 3 people died. It was later found that the police did follow protocol and the protocol was changed. Waiting for facts may be the best course of action even though the press stopped worrying about facts long ago.
Nobody said that. They want law enforcement to take immediate action, not hang around for an hour. That "action" may include shooting the suspect, but it may also include confronting and disarming the suspect.
Exactly, who wants cowards for cops. 2They are paid to put their life on the line and that's what they should do.
Assessing a situation can take more time than we would like. Rushing into an unknown situation is not always the best course of action. That is why it is important to get facts of what happened and if they were following established procedures.
Maybe a simple timeout would work.
Situations are constantly changing, when lives are in IMMEDIATE threat, action is needed. That is why they are trained to deal with situations as they encounter them. Not to stay out of the way trying to figure stuff out. Barricaded suspect that is simply threatening, is the time to stand back and figure things out, active shooters are not.
Maybe it would of if they gotten in there and tried.
How much training did they get in this little Latino town?
Since Columbine, the protocol for most agencies is to breach and enter as soon as possible. I would suspect the shooting was over by the time the cops arrived
Thats not what civilians who were on the scene say.
How many shots did they hear after the cops showed up?
apnews.com /article/uvalde-school-shooting-politics-texas-shootings-56a4d01fb1cda19947db89fcb6bd85fd
Police: Texas gunman was inside the school for over an hour
By JAKE BLEIBERG, JIM VERTUNO and ELLIOT SPAGAT 5-6 minutes 5/26/2022
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The gunman who massacred 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school was inside for more than an hour before he was killed in a shootout, law enforcement authorities said Thursday amid mounting public anger and scrutiny over their response to the rampage.
A media briefing called by Texas public safety officials to clarify the timeline of the attack provided bits of previously unknown information. By the time it ended, though, it had added to the troubling questions surrounding the attack, including about the time it took police to reach the scene and confront the gunman, and the apparent failure to lock a school door he entered.
After two days of providing often conflicting information, investigators said that a school district police officer was not in the school when 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos arrived around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, and, contrary to their previous reports, the officer had not confronted Ramos outside the building.
Instead, Ramos entered the building ”unobstructed” through an apparently unlocked door, said Victor Escalon, regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Local police officers entered the building four minutes later but were driven back after exchanging fire with the gunman, he said.
The crisis did not end until a group of Border Patrol agents went in nearly an hour later. Ramos, who had staked out a spot in the fourth grade classroom he targeted, was killed during the shootout, Escalon said.
Many other details of the case and the police response remained murky. The motive for the massacre — the nation’s deadliest school shooting since Newtown, Connecticut, a decade ago — remained under investigation, with authorities saying Ramos had no known criminal or mental health history.
During the siege, frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the school, according to witnesses.
“Go in there! Go in there!” women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who watched the scene from outside a house across the street.
Carranza said the officers should have entered the school sooner: “There were more of them. There was just one of him.”
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw defended the agency on Wednesday, saying: “The bottom line is law enforcement was there. They did engage immediately. They did contain (Ramos) in the classroom.”
Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz did not give a timeline but said repeatedly that the tactical officers from his agency who arrived at the school did not hesitate. He said they moved rapidly to enter the building, lining up in a “stack” behind an agent holding up a shield.
“What we wanted to make sure is to act quickly, act swiftly, and that’s exactly what those agents did,” Ortiz told Fox News.
But a law enforcement official said that once in the building, the Border Patrol agents had trouble breaching the classroom door and had to get a staff member to open the room with a key. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about the investigation.
Department of Public Safety spokesman Lt. Christopher Olivarez told CNN that investigators were trying to establish whether the classroom was, in fact, locked or barricaded in some way.
Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school as the massacre unfolded. When he arrived, he saw two officers outside the school and about five others escorting students out of the building. But 15 or 20 minutes passed before the arrival of officers with shields, equipped to confront the gunman, he said.
As more parents flocked to the school, he and others pressed police to act, Cazares said. He heard about four gunshots before he and the others were ordered back to a parking lot.
“A lot of us were arguing with the police, ‘You all need to go in there. You all need to do your jobs.’ Their response was, ‘We can’t do our jobs because you guys are interfering,’” Cazares said.
Ramos crashed his truck into a ditch outside the school, grabbed his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and shot at two people outside a funeral home, who ran away uninjured, according to authorities and witnesses.
As for the armed school officer, he was driving nearby but was not on campus when Ramos crashed his truck, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke of condition of anonymity.
Investigators have concluded that school officer was not positioned between the school and Ramos, leaving him unable to confront the shooter before he entered the building, the law enforcement official said.
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