Talking at a State Senate hearing Tuesday, Texas Department of Public Safety head Steve McCraw denounced police's reaction to the May 24 massacre as "an abject failure," and that there had been enough cops at the scene to stop the gunman only three minutes into the shooting.
"Three minutes after the subject entered the west hallway, there was sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor, to isolate distract and neutralize the subject," McCraw explained to the committee while examining the timeline of the day's tragic events.
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The assertion saw McCraw become the latest to lay blame on the botched reaction on district police chief Pete Arredondo, who reportedly commanded cops on the scene to stay put and not confront gunman Salvadaor Ramos after the teen barricaded himself inside a filled fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary.
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In a scathing address, McCraw announced the district chief "decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children."
"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," McCraw announced. "The officers had weapons - the children had none. The officers had body armor - the children had none."
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"The law enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary was an abject failure and antithetical to everything we’ve learned over the last two decades since the Columbine Massacre," McCraw announced.
In a different bombshell revelation, McCraw showed that the door to the classroom that Ramos had been hiding behind had not been locked - contradicting earlier declarations from Arredondo's department that the chief had been frantically attempting to track down keys for more than an hour, to open the fourth-grade classroom's door.
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At the time, officials announced they did not think that officers had attempted to open the door, the Statesman reported.
On Tuesday, McCraw showed that the classroom doors "could not lock from the inside," and that officers did not storm the building solely out of fear of being shot themselves.
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“One hour, 14 minutes and eight seconds," said McCraw. "That’s how long the children waited and the teachers waited...to be rescued."
"While they waited," McCraw went on, "the on-scene commander waited for radios and rifles, waited for shields, and waited for SWAT.
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"Lastly, he waited for a key that was never needed."
McCraw continued that even if the door had been secured, officers had the means to break it open.
But officers still waited an hour and 14 minutes to get into the classroom - all the while hearing gunshots and knowing that kids had been shot inside and that at least one teacher shot was yet alive.
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