Police questioned over delayed action in Texas school shooting 

Law enforcement officials face criticism and questioning on Thursday about their delayed response to the shooting that took place at a Texas elementary school this week that left 19 children and two teachers dead. 

While the incident remains under investigation and the timeline of the attack is still being clarified, many are questioning why law enforcement officers took so long to storm the building and put an end to the massacre.

Forty minutes to an hour passed between the time the shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, arrived at the school to when he was shot and killed, said Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw on Wednesday. 

According to witnesses, onlookers urged authorities to charge into the school. “Go in there! Go in there!” a woman shouted as officers allegedly just watched the incident play out. 

Javier Cazares, the father of a fourth-grader who was killed in the attack, said he arrived at the school after hearing about the incident and found police waiting outside of the building. Upset by their lack of action, he suggested to several bystanders that they should charge into the school. 

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” he said. “More could have been done.”

“They were unprepared,” he added.

Juan Carranza, a neighbor who saw the scene from his house across the street, said officers should have gone into the school sooner. "There were more of them. There was just one of him," he said. 

Cops stood outside the school while the killer rampaged inside.

Onlookers yelled at them to go in. They didn’t. One parent urged bystanders:

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to.” @AP story: https://t.co/l2CqPCzmAf

— Andy Specht (@AndySpecht) May 26, 2022

According to authorities, Ramos stormed the school with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and a handgun. When he entered the building, he exchanged fire with a school district security officer and then ran inside the building. Once inside, Ramos fired at two arriving police officers, injuring them, said a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Ramos then proceeded into one classroom and began to shoot. He “barricaded himself by locking the door and just started shooting children and teachers that were inside that classroom,” Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Department of Public Safety told CNN. “It just shows you the complete evil of the shooter.”

"And then [the shooting] stops, and he barricades himself in. That's where there's kind of a lull in the action," Representative Tony Gonzales told CNN. "All of it, I understand, lasted about an hour, but this is where there's kind of a 30-minute lull. They feel as if they've got him barricaded in. The rest of the students in the school are now leaving."

A law enforcement official familiar with the incident said that agents had a hard time breaching the classroom door and had to get a staff member to open the room with a key, reported the Associated Press. 

Texas officials are now investigating law enforcement’s response to the tragic incident. 

However, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz, who was at the scene, said that the tactical team did not hesitate to act when they arrived at the scene. "They entered that classroom and they took care of the situation as quickly as they possibly could," he said.

“What we wanted to make sure is to act quickly, act swiftly, and that’s exactly what those agents did,” Ortiz added.