The tragedy at Robb Elementary School shook everyone. At the start of the summer, on May 24, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos opened fire at the elementary school. Nineteen students and two teachers lost their lives in the tragedy. Seventeen people were left wounded.
Looking back at the heartbreaking events, it has been decided that the school will be torn down. The mayor of Uvalde, Texas, announced the decision just under a month after a horrific shooting incident.
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Mayor Of Uvalde Announces Robb Elementary Will Be “Demolished”
On Tuesday evening, in a city council meeting, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin was asked by an attendee about the school being “demolished.”
“My understanding — I had a discussion with the superintendent — that school will be demolished,” McLaughlin said. “We could never ask a child to go back, or a teacher to go back into that school ever.”
Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw also appeared before a Texas Senate committee on Tuesday. He candidly spoke about the police response to the May 24 mass shooting. McCraw stated that officers could have stopped the gunman if the commander had not hesitated. The safety director was blunt. He said that the law enforcement response was “an abject failure” and claimed that police could have stopped the shooter within three minutes after reaching the school.
“The officers had weapons; the children had none,” McCraw said during the hearing. “The officers had body armor; the children had none. The officers had training; the subject had none. One hour, 14 minutes, and eight seconds. That’s how long children waited, and the teachers waited, in Room 111 to be rescued.”
Public Safety Director Blames Chief Of Police For The Tragedy
McCraw went on to place the blame on Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo – the commanding officer at the scene, though later he said he had no idea he was in charge. In his testimony, McCraw said that Arredondo placed the lives of his officers before those of the children.
He said that the officers with rifles were on the scene within moments, and the classroom doors could not have been locked from the inside. Surveillance video from the scene showed that officers did not even try to open the doors. Instead, they waited for more than an hour to get the keys to the classrooms.
“I don’t mean to be hyper-critical of the on-scene commander,” McCraw testified on Tuesday morning. “But those are the facts. This set our profession back a decade.” The investigation into the police response is ongoing.
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