Texas School Shooting Review: Five Things You Need to Know

The Texas school shooting, otherwise known as the Uvalde shooting, was a mass shooting that occurred on Tuesday, 24 May, 2022.

At that time, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with an AR-15 and a shotgun, and killed 19 children and two adults (two teachers trying to protect the pupils).

This has now become the deadliest school shooting since the Sandy Hook mass shooting that took place in Newtown, Connecticut, almost 10 years ago, in which 26 people were killed.

As news reports have rolled in with detailed timelines of the events that unfolded, it has been confirmed that Uvalde police waited for an hour or more for a U.S. Customs and Border Protection tactical team to arrive and enter the school.

Uvalde Shooting: What You Need to Know

How long did it take the police to enter the classroom?

According to official reports, the gunman was in the classroom for an hour before being killed by the Customs and Border Protection tactical team.

Throughout this time, children were stuck in the classroom with the active shooter, where Ramos told police to leave him alone.

It has also been revealed that there were repeated 911 calls from both teachers and students, yet despite this, the school district's police chief had told more than a dozen officers to wait in a school hallway.

Why did it take officers so long to get into the classroom?

Officials have also expressed that they believed the gunman was no longer carrying an active attack, and that he was barricaded inside the classroom.

What will be done in the aftermath?

On Sunday, the Justice Department has said it will fully analyze and review the law enforcement response to the Texas school shooting.

The review, as requested by the Texas mayor, will be to "provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and response that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events," Anthony Coley (spokesman for the Justice Department) said in a statement.

In-depth reviews of shootings are not a common occurrence, this appears to confirm suspicions that the Texas police should not have waited an hour to enter the classroom.

What has the Texas Department of Public Safety said about this?

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Lieutenant, Chris Olivarez, defended the police's action.

He stated that "officers were in that building within minutes, they maintained their presence inside that school. We had multiple officers that responded on the scene within minutes. Two of those officers were shot, they took cover because you have to understand this is an active situation."

How did the parents of the victims react?

Since reports of the timeline of the mass shooting have emerged, videos have appeared showing angry parents pleading with the officers.

The parents were begging and pleading to go inside the classroom, but the Texas police officers did not allow them to do so.

One video, shared by Gizmo writer Matt Novak, showed several parents screaming at police outside the school during the attack.