Friday, March 29

Criticism of Texas police for ‘late’ response to shooting


  • The parents criticized the police slowness to intervene: “I’m going to go in. They are just children,” said a mother in a video shared on Facebook.

This Tuesday morning, US local time, Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old boy, entered a school with a handgun and a semi-automatic rifle, killing 19 children and two teachers, after crashing his truck into the vicinity around 11:30 a.m., according to police and witnesses. Authorities have said police officers who arrived at the scene they tried to enter the buildingbut were shot at, and that a tactical unit eventually broke through and engaged Ramos.

This delay of the action has raised blisters in a society traumatized by the high number of victims who have died in this latest attack, the deadliest in a school in the country since Sandy Hook, in Newtown, Connecticut, a decade ago. Such was the desperation at the time of the events, that dozens of terrified and nervous parents approached the line formed by the Security agents to implore them to act immediately. In a video posted on Facebook by a man named Ángel Ledezma, parents can be seen breaking through yellow police tape and yelling at officers to enter the building. “An hour has passed and they still can’t get all the children out,” Ledezma says during the video. “You know there are children, right? They are little children, they don’t know how to defend themselves,” the man yells.

“Get in there!”

“Get in there! Get in there!” several women are heard yelling at officers shortly after the attack began. Later, in the Facebook video, the man who records it says that the children “are all inside and the police do nothing but stay outside.” A woman is also heard saying that her son is inside the school, urging the police to shoot the attacker if they can: “They are children,” she shouts. “I’m going in, I’m going in.”

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The video shows parents nearby arguing with a law enforcement officer who yells at them to cross to the other side of the street and, in at least one case, appears to forcefully push an adult male away from the school. . The moments of tension were endless until finally the tactical patrol arrived.

60 minutes later

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw told a news conference Wednesday that Ramos died between 40 and 60 minutes later before the agents confronted him for the first time, but he didn’t want to be more precise. The head of the tactical patrol, Raúl Ortiz, repeatedly assured that the agents of his agency who arrived at the school did not hesitate. He said they moved quickly to enter the building, lining up behind an officer holding a shield. “What we wanted was to make sure to act quicklyact quickly, and that’s exactly what those agents did,” Ortiz told ‘Fox News’.

But a law enforcement official said once in the building, Border Patrol agents had trouble forcing open the classroom door and had to get a staff member to open the room with a key. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.

“Deranged”

In the midst of this panorama, the National Rifle Association (NRA, for its acronym in English) has ruled out canceling its conference this weekend in Houston, in the same state of Texas, and has described the tragedy at the Uvalde elementary school as the work of a “lonely deranged criminal”.

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“When we meet in Houston, we will reflect on these events, we will pray for the victimswe will recognize our patriots and pledge to redouble our commitment to making our schools safe,” the NRA said in a statement. The NRA’s argument for the mental health of the shooter is the same argument Republicans have been making. to justify easy access to guns, from the governor of Texas himself, Greg Abbottto Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The celebration of this new conference of the powerful arms lobby of the United States will take place less than 450 kilometers from where the 18-year-old broke in with a legally purchased AR-15 assault rifle and murdered 19 children and two of their teachers.


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