A week after the tragic shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, details are increasingly emerging that change the original timelines that were given. The updates, as it turns out, are often more tragic and infuriating.
Matt highlighted on Friday afternoon how the Texas Department of Public Safety, Col. Steven C. McCraw explained that they had made the decision for officers to not go in to engage with the shooter, Salvador Rolando Ramos, the 18-year old who is now deceased. This happened all while Ramos murdered 21 people, as parents desperately tried to go in to save their children but were physically prevented from doing so by police. McGraw also acknowledged that that was a mistake, calling it "not the right decision," and saying "it was the wrong decision."
The incompetency and mistakes are getting even more heartbreaking, though. ABC News reported on Tuesday night that "Uvalde police, school district no longer cooperating with Texas probe of shooting: Sources."
As the report mentions:
Reached by ABC News, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety said, "The Uvalde Police Department and Uvalde CISD Police have been cooperating with investigators. The chief of the Uvalde CISD Police provided an initial interview but has not responded to a request for a follow-up interview with the Texas Rangers that was made two days ago."
Fox News' Louis Casiano had more in his report:
Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police chief, has not responded to Texas Rangers in two days for a follow-up interview from his initial statements following the shooting, a DPS spokesperson told Fox News in a statement.
"The Uvalde Police Department and Uvalde CISD Police have been cooperating with investigators," the statement said. "The chief of the Uvalde CISD Police provided an initial interview but has not responded to a request for a followup interview with the Texas Rangers that was made two days ago."
Arredondo reportedly made the decision to not immediately confront suspected shooter Salvador Ramos, 18, at Robb Elementary School during his rampage last week. Authorities waited in a school hallway for nearly 50 minutes before breaching a classroom door.
McCraw said that Arredondo thought the situation had transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject, and that they had time to wait for tactical equipment and keys to unlock the classroom's door.
The police response as well as the flow of inaccurate information by law enforcement in the days after have generated criticism from parents of the victims as well as officials who had praised authorities immediately afterward.
ABC News' Aaron Katersky had also tweeted the news, with our friends at Twitchy highlighting reactions.
I'm kind of astounded that at least the Uvalde ISD chief (the commander on the scene & responsible for police security of the schools in town) hasn't just tendered his resignation and left the state. How does he think he has a future job there?
— Andrew Kadel (@FrKadel) May 31, 2022
Every single day. pic.twitter.com/znOXWdGN2c
— Double_A_Neu (@AA_Neu) May 31, 2022
How can they refuse to cooperate? They’re paid with taxes and they didn’t do the job they’re employed to do.
— Samantha (@twainsname) May 31, 2022
"Refusing to cooperate". Stunning really.
— Maxx ???? ???? (@maxxhoff) May 31, 2022
"STOP RESISTING," in all caps, has been trending over Twitter on Tuesday night in response to people discussing things that the police tells other to do but aren't doing themselves in this case.
Another report from Fox News, this one from Paul Best, changes the narrative on yet another claim, which is that a teacher had propped open a door.
A Texas official now says that the door that the shooter used to enter the school was propped open by a teacher. pic.twitter.com/bYWvHIBXqB
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 27, 2022
From Best's report:
A teacher at Robb Elementary School who left a door propped open moments before last week's attack had actually closed the door before the gunman entered, but it did not lock, the teacher's lawyer and authorities said Tuesday.
"She saw the wreck… She ran back inside to get her phone to report the accident. She came back out while on the phone with 911. The men at the funeral home yelled, ‘He has a gun!’ She saw him jump the fence, and he had a gun so she ran back inside," Don Flanary, a lawyer for the teacher, told San Antonio Express-News on Tuesday.
"She kicked the rock away when she went back in. She remembers pulling the door closed while telling 911 that he was shooting. She thought the door would lock because that door is always supposed to be locked."
...
Travis Considine, chief communications officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Tuesday that additional surveillance footage revealed that the teacher did actually close the door.
"We did verify she closed the door. The door did not lock. We know that much and now investigators are looking into why it did not lock," Considine told the Associated Press.
While surveillance has now since confirmed that, nobody should get too excited just yet with any investigations looking into why the door did not lock, especially when it comes to how the situation has played out thus far.