The police response to the Uvalde school massacre was deemed an “abject failure” by the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), who noted that there were enough sufficiently armed officers “to isolate, distract and neutralize the subject.”
Instead, he noted, a decision was made to put the lives of officers ahead of the lives of defenseless teachers and children, and the more we learn the worse it seems to get.
On Tuesday, Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw told the Texas Senate in a hearing that the husband of Robb Elementary School teacher Eva Mireles, a Uvalde CISD police officer, was detained after arriving on the scene, WFAA reported. Officer Ruben Ruiz, who participated in an active shooter drill at a nearby high school two months earlier, knew his wife had been shot and tried to save her. Ruiz was detained and had his gun taken away.
Mireles, who had called her husband for help, died along with another teacher and 19 elementary school children.
“We got an officer whose wife called him and said she’d been shot and she’s dying,” McCraw said. “He tried to move forward into the hallway. He was detained, and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene.”
The husband of Eva Mireles, a teacher who was killed, is a #Uvalde schools police officer who responded to scene.
He knew his wife had been shot.
When he tried to go in the classroom to get her he was “detained” & his gun was taken from him, said DPS head Steve McCraw.
— Teresa Woodard (@twoodard8) June 21, 2022
McCraw also said officers waited more than an hour to breach a door that was never locked. Eleven police officers armed with rifles and at least one ballistic shield reportedly entered the school within minutes of the gunman entering the school, but the classroom was not breached for over an hour until a Border Patrol tactical team stormed in and shot and killed the gunman.
The police officers on the scene are being vilified by the public, but McGraw put the onus squarely on the shoulders of the on-scene commander.
“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,” he said.
Texas State Senator Brandon Creighton (R) questioned McCraw about whether the officers inside the school ever checked the door.
“There’s many references about Chief Arredondo, though, about the door being locked and needing keys and more keys and a master key and just constant references to keys,” he said. “But is there any evidence whatsoever that shows, through the video as it was examined later, that the door was ever — that there was an attempt to open the door or test whether or not it was locked?”
“We could never see anybody put their hand on the door. And of course, up until the breach,” McCraw replied. “And then at the last, at the breach, we’ve gone back and talked to the breachers. Re-interviewed the breaches. And they said, no, they didn’t try the door handle beforehand.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.