Police waited upwards of 40 minutes to enter the school while the gunman was inside.
The White House has so far avoided requests for the police response into the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday (24 May).
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre avoided questions on the topic during a press conference on Thursday (26 May).
“I know that right now, authorities are working to piece together more details of what happened in Uvalde, so we won’t prejudge the result from here at this time,” Jean-Pierre said.
“It is always a good idea to look back and try to find any lessons we can learn, especially from tragedies like this, so that we can prevent them moving forward, including the law enforcement response.”
Police reportedly took an hour to assemble a team to confront the gunman while he was inside the school.
The standard practice in America is for responding officers to confront active shooters immediately to avoid further loss of life.
However, law enforcement not only waited outside while 18-year-old Salvador Ramos killed 19 children and two adults in a classroom, but did so while parents begged them to save their children.
Javier Cazares, whose daughter Jacklyn was killed in the attack, told AP News that he rushed to the scene when he heard of the situation.
“A lot of us were arguing with the police, ‘You all need to go in there. You all need to do your jobs.’ Their response was, ‘We can’t do our jobs because you guys are interfering,’” Cazares said.
Police reports have changed as time has gone on, from officers initially claiming to have immediately rushed in to the scene, to waiting outside for a period.
Police had also claimed that they had confronted the shooter before entering the school, but a report from the Texas Department of Public Safety contradicted this, saying that no-one had confronted Ramos.
US President Joe Biden is set to visit Uvalde on Sunday to meet families of the victims.
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