Shannon Longworth: The Texas Department of Public Safety has now explained why it took law enforcement more than an hour to enter the school and confront the shooter in Uvalde Texas earlier this week.
Col. Steven McCraw | Texas Department of Public Safety Director: “With the benefit of hindsight from where I’m sitting now, of course it wasn’t the right decision, it was the wrong decision period. There’s no excuse for that.”
Shannon Longworth: Officials explained that officers first attempted to enter the school at 11:35, but 2 were grazed by bullets.
Deciding to wait for more tactical equipment and backup, the incident commander believed the shooter was barricaded in a classroom without children–that he was no longer an immediate threat as an active shooter.
We now know that was not the case.
There were children in that classroom.
Col. Steven McCraw | Texas Department of Public Safety Director: “Forget how I’m doing, I’m not the parents of those children. forget about me and our officers and stuff like that. We take an oath to uphold the law and protect people. And anytime something tragic like this happens we want to know why it happened and if we can do better next time.”
Shannon Longworth: Officers entered the building and killed the suspect at 12:50pm.
In today’s press conference, officials also corrected several false pieces of information disseminating in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
They say the shooter did NOT, in fact, post his plans publicly on Facebook before he executed them.
He did, however, write them in a direct message through the social media platform.