No Heroes Among These Uvalde Officers of the Law

"I don't care if you have on flip-flops and Bermuda shorts, you go in!"

"The officers had weapons, the children had none. The officers had body armour, the children had none. The officers had training, the subject had none."

"One hour, 14 minutes and eight seconds -- that is how long the children waited, and the teachers waited, in room 111 to be rescued."

"The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children."

" Obviously, not enough training was done in this situation, plain and simple. Because terrible decisions were made by the on-site commander."

"You don't wait for a SWAT team. You have one officer, that's enough."

Col. Steve McCraw, director, Texas Department of Public Safety

Police blocked off the road leading to the scene of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24   Sergio Flores for The Texas Tribune

Exploding with undisguised scorn in testifying before a state Senate hearing over the Robb Elementary School mass murders, the director of its public safety department excoriated the Uvalde school district police chief, Pete Arredondo who had been in charge on that fateful May 24 day when the attack that took the lives of 19 young children and two of their teachers in a massacre of stunning proportions shocked the country and turned its attention on the easy accessibility of gun ownership for a mentally unstable 18-year-old.

Members of the Texas state senate sat silently as hours of testimony passed before them with the inexplicable evidence of police dispatched to the scene having enough officers responding in those critical first moments of the school invasion by a well-armed and obviously dangerous shooter to stop the massacre before it unfolded. Three minutes after the gunman entered the school the first responders could have entered the door leading to the classroom where children and their teachers were held hostage to murderous intent.

What did in actual fact occur was the stationing of police officers holding rifles in a hallway as time passed critically. For over an hour they waited for others to arrive as backup with more fire power and protective shields. Waiting as fear and suspense grew in the sinister situation, with desperate parents begging the police to move in, to disable the shooter, to save their vulnerable children from certain death. The parents were ignored, some even taken briefly into custody.

As a police action in a situation of grave and imminent danger to small children held captive by a man intent on committing the most reprehensible crimes imaginable, the response was criminally abysmal, an "abject failure" in the opinion of the director of public safety. Eventually the gunman was confronted and permanently disabled, sent to his death, but his monstrous work was already done in the deaths of 21 living souls.

Desperate, frightened children hid as best they could, they disguised themselves to appear dead, they hid themselves under furniture, in closets, they called 911 begging for police to arrive. And all the while police were there, just outside the door where death stalked the children. The courageous officers of the law stood waiting, waiting, waiting, and so did the children. Those who survived the horror will never again be children, they will be haunted for the rest of their natural lives.

the classroom door would easily have opened had any of the officers turned the door handle. The lock had earlier been reported broken so it could not be locked from the interior. None of the officers attempted to move the door open, waiting instead for someone to produce a key. "I have great reasons to believe it was never secured. How about trying the door and seeing if it's locked?", said Col. McRae scathingly.

State legislators wanted to know why it was that state troopers who arrived on the scene failed to take charge. The explanation? They did not have legal authority to do that. Three officers with two rifles entered the building under three minutes following the gunman's entry to the school hefting his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle. Soon afterward several more officers entered. The two who were early entering the hallway had been grazed by gunfire. And that was enough to put them out of the business of saving children's lives.

Visitors paid their respects at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on June 2. Twenty-one people, including 19 children, were killed by a gunman at the school on May 24    Lucas Boland/Corpus Christi Caller-Times via REUTERS