Texas Police Official Says Waiting For Tactical Team Amid Uvalde Shooting 'Wrong Decision'

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th May, 2022) The decision made by the incident commander not to enter the Robb Elementary school in Uvalde amid the shooting incident and wait for a tactical team to arrive, was wrong, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw told reporters.

"The decision was made that this was a barricaded subject situation, there was time to retrieve the keys and wait for a tactical team with the equipment to go ahead and breach the door and take on the subject at that point," McCraw said on Friday. "There were 19 officers in there, in fact there were plenty of officers to do whatever needed to be done with one exception - the incident commander inside believed he needed more equipment and more officers to do a tactical breach at that point... Where I'm sitting now, of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period."

McCraw explained that the on-scene commander considered the situation transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject and there were no more children at risk.

"Obviously, based upon the information we have, there were children in that classroom that were at risk and it was in fact still an active shooter situation and not a barricaded subject," he said.

McCraw said that the person who made the decision was the School District Police Chief. The US media reported identified him as Pedro "Pete" Arredondo.

The Biden administration and congressional lawmakers have renewed discussions about passing additional gun control legislation following the shooting at the Robb Elementary School that left 21 people dead.

The shooting in Texas came shortly after another mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, by a mentally disturbed person and an alleged white supremacist. The FBI qualified the shooting as a racially motivated hate crime. Three individuals were injured and ten others killed by a 18-year old suspect.