Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.
“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the close-knit town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.
Javier Cazares, whose fourth-grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting, arriving while police were still gathered outside the building.
Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders. “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.
The father of a child who was killed in the attack says police were slow to move in and were unprepared. The 18-year-old shooter warned in online messages shortly before the shooting that he would shoot his grandmother and shoot at an elementary school, Gov. Greg Abbott said. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he will travel to Uvalde, Texas, “in the coming days” to meet the families of the 19 children and two teachers killed in the shooting.
Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, who is running against Abbott for governor this year, interrupted the press conference, calling the shooting “totally predictable when you choose not to do anything.” Several victims have been identified by family members.
Among them are teacher Eva Mireles, 44; and students Uziyah Garcia, 8; Xavier Javier Lopez, 10; Amerie Jo Garza, 10; and Jose Flores Jr., 10. Officials say all of the victims were in the same classroom. The suspect, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, is dead.