In the emotion-drenched aftermath of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, video is emerging of parents voicing anguish and frustration with police as they waited for the ordeal to end.
Based on these accounts, the website Breitbart is claiming there was a 40-minute lull in which police did not attack, despite the urgings of parents to do.
Democratic Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas said that based on his understanding, that lull took place after an initial round of carnage in a classroom, according to CNN.
“And then (the shooting) stops, and he barricades himself in. That’s where there’s kind of a lull in the action,” Gonzales said. “All of it, I understand, lasted about an hour, but this is where there’s kind of a 30-minute lull. They feel as if they’ve got him barricaded in. The rest of the students in the school are now leaving.”
Officials also are analyzing ballistics to learn who fired and when. Sources say these types of reviews are standard after major incidents but are intensified in this case because of discrepancies in statements and gravity of the matter. Uvalde’s chief could not be reached. (2/3)
— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) May 26, 2022
However, as noted in The Washington Post, “Ramos was in the room for some time before police officers entered, and it was unclear whether he killed the students when he first barricaded himself inside or just before the police breached the room.”
But if there was a plan, it did not seem so to parents, whose agony was videoed as they demanded police act, according to the New York Post.
“What are you doing — get inside the building!” one person demanded in one video clip the Post reviewed.
Are police properly trained for these incidents?
“Go protect the kids!” another parent called out as another called, “Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to.”
One parent appeared to have been detained by police.
Some parents demanded they be allowed to take on the shooter.
“You’re scared of getting shot? I’ll go in without a vest — I will,” one said.
*BREAKING* Robb Elementary School shooting. Uvalde Texas. This video shows the chaos outside of the school where parents were trying to find their children.#Uvalde #RobbElementary #SchoolShooting pic.twitter.com/yx97i6Bh9w
— TheFamily’sSoup TV (@FamilysSoupTV) May 25, 2022
Jacinto Cazares, whose daughter Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares was among the victims, said the police could have done more, according to ABC.
“There was at least 40 lawmen armed to the teeth but didn’t do a darn thing [until] it was far too late,” he said.
“The situation could’ve been over quick if they had better tactical training, and we as a community witnessed it firsthand,” he said.
“There were five or six of [us] fathers, hearing the gunshots, and [police officers] were telling us to move back,” Cazares said, according to The Washington Post.
“We didn’t care about us. We wanted to storm the building. We were saying, ‘Let’s go’ because that is how worried we were, and we wanted to get our babies out,” he said
He was also quoted by the Associated Press as saying, “Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to.”
Firefighter Ernest King said some parents reached the school, according to the New York Post.
“Obviously it was an extremely chaotic situation early on and I’m not going to say throughout the whole thing, it became under control pretty rapidly but a lot of families trying to get in there, trying to find their kid,” he said.
“I heard, I didn’t see, I heard of fathers there breaking out windows pulling their kids out of windows. It was a terrible, tragic scene,” he said.
