Thursday, May 26, 2022

Distraught Parents Begged Police For AN ENTIRE HOUR To Do Something About Texas School Shooter (As Shots Were Heard From Inside School); The Police Did Absolutely Nothing





Two days after the murders of 19 third- and fourth-grade children and three adults at a Texas elementary school (an additional 17 other people were injured), the emerging news about the inaction of police officers on the scene (and the increasing number of fantastical lies told by numerous Republican officials, from Governor Greg Abbott on down, desperate to create a fictional account of the massacre that will (hopefully) absolve them of blame for slavishly doing the bidding of the NRA and gun manufacturers and keeping the supply of millions of dollars in corporate bribes pouring into their wallets) has added another layer of unimaginable horror to the slaughter.

Numerous armed and well-trained police officers stood around outside doing nothing as gunshots could be heard inside in school. They stayed busy harassing the mothers and fathers and other citizens who were pleading and begging and demanding that something -- anything -- be done about the murders that were being committed at that moment. The police actually broke out handcuffs and pepper spray to control the crowd of frantic, crying parents. The police took more action to silence the parents than they did to silence the AR-15 being used to kill those parents' children.

One mother was 40 miles away when she first learned of the shooting. She drove to the school and was temporarily handcuffed after begging the police to do their jobs. When the cuffs were removed, she eluded the police, jumped the school fence, ran inside the building, and somehow was able to re-emerge with her children. She started off 40 miles away. That gives you an idea of how much time passed with no action from law enforcement.

There were reports that some police officers did enter the school -- but only to rescue their own kids before getting the hell out, hopefully without interacting with the murderer.

The police have now given three official stories to the media; who knows how many more they will tell? It's no surprise that each new explanation has attempted to further excuse, explain away and distort the inactivity of the police.

Cops Still Can't Explain Agonizing Hour-Long Wait To Storm Uvalde Classroom
As questions mount over the police response to the shooting rampage in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children dead, footage has surfaced showing desperate parents pleading with police officers outside the school to take action as the massacre was unfolding inside.

The video, filmed by a nearby resident outside Robb Elementary School and verified by The Washington Post, was taken at 11:54 a.m.—after 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos had entered the school and barricaded himself in a classroom before opening fire on kids and teachers. "These cops are right here. Bro, there's a [expletive] shooting at the school and these [expletive] cops are telling everybody to leave, dude, while everybody's here trying to pick up their [expletive] kids," the man filming the video can be heard saying.

The kids "are all in there and the cops ain't doing [expletive] but standing outside," he says moments later, before adding, "You know that there are kids, right? They're little kids, they don't know how to defend themselves." . . .

Victor Escalon, regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, provided an updated timeline of events on Thursday yet it still raised more questions than it answered. . . . He also repeatedly denied to explain why, or how, it took an hour for specialist teams to arrive and breach the classroom. . . .

The new information will do little to comfort traumatized witnesses and grieving families who told the Associated Press they saw several police officers standing around outside the school even as the shooting was underway.

"There were five or six of [us] fathers, hearing the gunshots, and [police officers] were telling us to move back," Javier Cazares, the father of one of the children killed, told the 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," Cazares said.

The harrowing video from the scene seems to make the police response all the more baffling.

Distraught parents can be seen literally collapsing into themselves and wailing in anguish as officers refused to answer their pleas to go inside the building.

After one officer reassures them, "We're taking care of it," a crowd of angry parents yells that the gunman "isn't dead yet."

Multiple parents can be seen trying to break through the police cordon to reach their children, only to be held back by cops or relatives. Police officers' matter-of-fact reassurances to parents are drowned out by piercing, agonized screams that sound more animal than human.
As Timeline Emerges, Police Criticized For Response To School Massacre
Desperate parents gathering outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., were ordered by police to move away as they begged officers in tactical gear to go inside after a gunman. Some tried to rush in themselves; one man was pinned to the ground by officers, video recorded at the scene shows, and a witness told The Washington Post that a woman was handcuffed. . . .

But even as police from local, state and federal agencies responded to the scene, an hour passed before a heavily armed tactical team entered a 4th grade classroom and killed 18-year-old Salvador Rolando Ramos . . .

At a chaotic news conference Thursday, Victor Escalon Jr., a regional director at the Texas Department of Public Safety, gave a starkly different account of the police response to the massacre than what officials had said earlier this week. . . .

The new details were released as authorities faced growing questions over the response by law enforcement to the attack and the use of tactics that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and other officials previously claimed helped to prevent more deaths at the school. . . .

After two days in which officials had offered partial and contradictory details of the timeline of the shooting, Escalon offered another, equally confusing account on Thursday. . . .

Officials had previously stated that the gunman was confronted by a school police officer who fired at him. Later, they said the officer had confronted him but did not open fire. Escalon said on Thursday that both versions were inaccurate: No officer confronted the gunman before he entered the west side of the school at 11:40 a.m., Escalon said, adding that he walked through a door that appeared to have been unlocked. . . .

Police and public officials have cautioned that their massive investigation is ongoing and what is known about the shooting will undoubtedly change in coming days and weeks. . . .

Authorities have not said precisely what time the gunman was shot, but Escalon on Thursday said it was approximately one hour after the first responding officers arrived. Uvalde police announced on social media at 1:06 p.m. that the gunman was under the control of law enforcement.
"Go In There!": People Begged Police To Enter Uvalde School As Gunman Rampaged For Up To An Hour
Onlookers pleaded for police to enter Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas while the gunman who killed 21 people was inside the school for roughly an hour . . .

[The police inaction] rais[ed] questions about why it took so long to stop the attack.

"Go in there! Go in there!" frustrated onlookers shouted at officers during the attack, according to the AP, but witness Juan Carranza told the outlet the officers did not go in.

"There were more of them. There was just one of him," Carranza told the outlet. . . .

There are also questions about the initial information provided by police about the shooting. Though some reports initially said police exchanged gunfire with Ramos before he entered the school, officials now say no gunfire was exchanged until he entered the school. And although DPS spokespersons repeatedly said that the suspect barricaded himself in a classroom and started shooting after he was confronted by police, McCraw said Wednesday that the officers "were responsible" for containing the gunman in the classroom. All of the children killed in the shooting were in a single classroom, according to DPS Lt. Christopher Olivarez.

A law enforcement official told the AP that Border Patrol agents involved in the response also had trouble breaching the classroom door and had to get a staff member to unlock it with a key. . . .

McCraw declined to provide a timeline of events during a news conference on Wednesday but a state official told the Times that the gunman, who first shot his grandmother and then crashed her pickup truck outside the school at around 11:30 am, was killed shortly after 1 pm. . . .

The school went into lockdown around 11:43 am, according to a timeline put together by the Washington Post. . . .

By 12:10 pm, a Facebook live stream showed that police had established a perimeter around the school. By 12:17 pm, school officials announced on social media that there was an "active shooter." Shots were still being heard at 12:52 pm . . .
More Guns And Cops At Schools Are Not The Answer
Even though local officers were at the scene, Salvador Ramos locked himself in a classroom, told the class, "It's time to die," and proceeded to slaughter 19 third and fourth graders and two middle-aged women over the course of an hour. This all happened while police waited for backup outside.

During that time, video shows desperate parents begging the officers at the scene to go into the building. . . . Instead, the video seems to show officers performing crowd control to keep the frantic parents away from the school.

Although a bunch of unarmed, hysterical parents storming the school may not have helped, it's striking that police appear to have waited about an hour for backup before entering the school.

Juan Cloy, a retired former assistant chief of the Canton, Mississippi Police Department, is currently a lead instructor at the Justice Training Institute. While Cloy declined to comment on the shooting in Uvalde, he told The Daily Beast that when an active shooter situation occurs, law enforcement must pursue that attacker right away. "Even if you're off duty, if it's an active shooter, you go straight to where the gunfire or commotion is," Cloy said. "You run straight into it, to stop the killing, stop the harm."

A boy who survived the Uvalde shooting described what happened when police finally penetrated the premises.

"When the cops came, the cop said: 'Yell if you need help!' And one of the persons in my class said 'help.' The guy overheard and he came in and shot her," the boy told KENS5 News.

Telling the children to yell out was yet another strange decision by the responding officers. Active shooter drills instruct victims to remain quiet.

"If the active shooter is nearby, Lock the door. Silence your cell phone and/or pager. Turn off any source of noise (i.e., radios, televisions). Hide behind large items (i.e., cabinets, desks). Remain quiet," the Department of Homeland Security advises. And although SWAT teams bust down doors using battering rams with some regularity, a school staff member had to unlock the door to the classroom.
Ted Cruz Quits Interview After Foreign Journalist Asks "Why Does This Only Happen In Your Country?"
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., called a journalist a "propagandist" on Wednesday before storming off from an interview about gun violence in the wake of a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that left nineteen children and two adults dead.

The interview came after a vigil for the victims of the massacre, where British journalist Mark Stone of Sky News approached Cruz to ask him if now was the time for gun reform.

"You know, it's easy to go to politics," Cruz replied. "The proposals from Democrats and the media? Inevitably, when some violent psychopath murders people… if you want to stop violent crime, the proposals the Democrats have? None of them would have stopped this."

Stone then asked the Texas senator why mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon.

"Why only in America?" Stone inquired. "Why is this American exceptionalism so awful?"

"You know, I'm sorry you think American exceptionalism is awful. You've got your political agenda. God love you," Cruz shot back. "Why is it that people come from all over the world to America? Because it's the freest, most prosperous, safest country on Earth. Stop being a propagandist."

But Stone pressed on: "Senator, I just want to understand why you do not think that guns are the problem. It's just an American problem."

"You can't answer that, can you?" Stone added before Cruz walked out of the interview.
Also:

Uvalde's GOP Congressman Won't Answer Why 18-Year-Olds Can Buy Assault Rifles

Newsmax Hosts Gun Lobbyist Who—Of Course—Blames Uvalde Shooting On Gun Control

Texas Police Find AK-47 And "Hit List" While Investigating "Credible Threat" Against Another School

I'm so old I remember when this would have been considered a big fucking deal:
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