Heartbreaking photos have emerged of police officers rescuing terrified children through windows during the school massacre in Texas.
However, questions still mount about why cops did not engage the 18-year-old gunman immediately.
The photos shared on Friday show part of the law enforcement response to the incident shooting incident in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday.
Photos taken outside Robb Elementary School also show US Customs and Border Protection against alongside sheriff’s deputies and local police carrying children out of a window.
After a siege that lasted for almost an hour, Border Patrol agents used a master key to open a locked classroom where they engaged and killed shooter Salvador Ramos, 18, who shot and killed 19 students and two teachers.
On Friday, officials admitted that almost 20 officers stood in a hallway outside the classrooms during the shooting incident.
“Of course it was not the right decision, it was the wrong decision,” said Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw during a news conference.
He also said that the on-site commander “was convinced at the time that there was no more threat to the children and that the subject was barricaded and that they had time to organize” to enter the classroom.
According to reports, Ramos entered the classroom at 11:34 am and locked the door. He fired over 100 shots inside the rooms 111 and 112 during the first few minutes.
He then continued shooting ‘sporadically’ until 12:21 pm. But it wasn’t until 12:50 pm that officers used a master key they obtained from a janitor to enter the room.
Throughout the attack, children and teachers repeatedly called 911, including a young girl who begged: “Please send the police now.”
“With the benefit of hindsight, from where I am sitting now – of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision. There is no excuse,” McCraw said.
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