As our nation once again begins to pick up the pieces of another heart wrenching tragedy, there are a great many unanswered questions still floating in the collective consciousness.
On Wednesday, as a deranged 18 year-old shooter was gunning down innocent children and teachers inside a Uvalde, Texas elementary school, parents and other assorted locals spent nearly an hour attempting to convince police to enter the building and confront the attacker.
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.
That wasn’t all:
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.
When law enforcement finally did enter the building, they were unable to open the door to the room that the shooter was in, finally being forced to ask school staffers to bring a key to unlock the door.
The criticism is reminiscent of the scene outside of the Stoneman Douglas school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which a number of members of the Broward County Sheriff’s department remained outside of the school as the mass murder took place.
