New questions raised like why did police go in more quickly and end the massacre.
"Active Shooter" attacks in America end within five-ten minutes, but the Uvalde school shooting lasted an hour. Police waited an hour for backup on Tuesday's attack from removing the gunman from the classroom. It has also confounded experts who say the delay deviates from standard police practice, which says officers should do whatever they can, as fast as they can, to stop a shooter’s assault. “Waiting an hour is disgusting,” said Sean Burke, a recently retired Lawrence, Massachusetts “They don’t make entry initially because of the gunfire they’re receiving,” Escalon said of the officers. “But we have officers calling for additional resources, everybody that’s in the area, tactical teams: We need equipment, we need specialty equipment, we need body armor, we need precision riflemen, negotiators.” Police helped evacuate children from the school, while they waited for backup. Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez said in a statement Thursday that his officers “responded within minutes” and that one officer was wounded by the gunman. “I understand questions are surfacing regarding the details of what occurred. I know answers will not come fast enough during this trying time, but rest assured that with the completion of the full investigation, I will be able to answer all the questions that we can,” Rodriguez wrote. Waiting for specialized tactical units used to be standard practice in responding to shooters. That changed after the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, when police waited nearly an hour for a SWAT team to enter the building — during which time 12 students and one teacher were killed. An FBI study of 160 “active shooter” incidents in the U.S. from 2000 to 2013 found that the majority of shootings in which the duration could be determined ended in five minutes or less, with about half of those lasting no more than two minutes. The first officers at the scene may have been overwhelmed, because of a lack of either training or proper equipment, said Steve Nottingham “You have to start thinking outside the box with something like that,” Nottingham said. “If you don’t interfere with the shooter, you just cause more victims.” Law enforcement officials have previously said that the gunman locked the door of the classroom where the massacre took place and that police were unable to open it until a school official brought them a master key. Javier Cazares, the father of a fourth grader who died, recalled rushing to the school after he heard about the attack and joining other parents gathered outside, where they heard gunshots. Feeling the need to do something, Cazares and several other parents questioned whether they should go inside themselves and rescue the young students. More officers arrived and pushed the parents farther from the school. “From what I saw, they didn’t go in as fast as they should,” Cazares said. “Once they heard those gunshots, they should have been in there quick.” “If they would have acted rapidly, maybe it wouldn’t have happened,” she said.
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