Abbott stressed that the information he disclosed in the aftermath of the shooting, which was largely inaccurate, was based on what he was told. He said he was determined to get full clarity in the coming days about what exactly happened. “The information I was given turned out to be largely inaccurate,” said the governor, who had previously praised police for their “astonishing courage” in running towards the gunman and their “quick response.”
The police in Texas announced earlier Friday that they had made a ‘wrong choice’ by not taking immediate action. “It was the wrong decision. Period,” said Steven McCraw, the state’s chief security officer. Among other things, the local police waited for a special police team to enter the classroom and take out the gunman. According to McCraw, it should have been different. As a result, it took a long time before action was actually taken. McCraw said the commander at the scene believed none of the students in the room were alive.
McCraw also gave a timetable free of the events. The 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos entered the school at 11:33 a.m. local time. The first officers arrived within two minutes and not long after, nineteen officers were in the school. But no one broke into the room where Ramos carried out a massacre. In the end, the special police team did not take out the shooter until 12:51 PM.
During the shooting, students from the school called the emergency number several times.