Texas GovernorGreg Abbottsays he is “livid” after being “misled” when told details of theshootingat a Texas elementary school that killed 19 children and two adults.
“Short answer, yes, I was misled,” said Abbott, 64, at a press conference Friday. “I am livid about what happened.”
He continued, “I was on this very stage two days ago, and I was telling the public information that had been told to me in a room just a few yards behind where we’re looking at right now. I wrote down hand notes in detail about what everybody in that room told me in sequential order. As everybody has learned, the information that I was given turned out, in part, to be inaccurate. And I’m absolutely livid about that.”
Since Abbott’s remarks on Wednesday, it has beenrevealedthat approximately 20 officers waited in a hallway for more than 45 minutes, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Col. Steven McCraw, said. They finally engaged with the gunman after Border Patrol agents used a master key to open the door.
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By that time, the victims were dead.
“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision,” McCraw told reporters. “It was a wrong decision. There’s no excuse for that. We believe there should have been an entry as soon as you can. When there’s an active shooter, the rules change.”
The shooter entered the building through a door that a teacher had propped open. According to McCraw, the school officer was not initially on campus when the gunman breached the school.
McCraw said that the commander believed the gunman had barricaded himself into an empty classroom, and that no children were at risk. “He believed that it had transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject,” he said.
Greg Abbott.Montinique Monroe/Getty Images
source: people.com
