Cops accused of cowardice and dereliction in Texas school shooting after failing to act quickly

WASHINGTON: Allegations of cowardice and dereliction of duty on part of cops erupted across an anguished America on Friday as it emerged that the teenage gunman who slaughtered 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas on Tuesday got ample time to carry out his carnage while the local police took more than an hour to get their act together.
Authorities continued to offer confusing and contradictory accounts of the grisly massacre that has shocked a country all too familiar with mass shootings. But one thing appeared clear: Nearly 90 minutes elapsed between the time police were first alerted to Salvator Ramos shooting his grandmother at home and the time he was shot dead in a school where he murdered 19 children and two teachers.

In between, he was seen with his assault rifle entering the school by a security guard -- who, it was not clear why did not or could not stop him. Authorities also revised earlier accounts that said there was an exchange of fire before he entered the school.
Once inside, Ramos got all the time in the world to go on a killing spree although officials said he eventually barricaded himself in a classroom after one round of execution when police went in and there was an exchange of gunfire in which two cops were injured. But thereafter, the cops withdrew to regroup and bring in swat teams and tactical gear, and establish a security perimeter, all of which appears to have taken an inordinate amount of time.
All this while, cops restrained anxious parents from rushing in to rescue their children, even as some parents, including a local cop, broke through unguarded areas to bring out their kids. A federal tactical team that had arrived on the scene and waited for more than half an hour as the local police established a security perimeter and evacuated other classrooms finally went in and killed the perpetrator.

While the precise sequence of events is still unclear, anger coursed through the country where policing is among the many divisive issues. "Big macho Texan men w/all their guns & militarized equipment refused to risk their lives to save the children. For over an hour they ran & hid. Then for hrs after the killer was dead, they paraded around with all their guns looking important when in fact they were simply cowards," the filmmaker Michael Moore, among the many who accused the cops of cowardice, tweeted.
It also transpires that there were many red flags about Ramos authorities failed to spot, enabling him to legally purchase assault rifles on his 18th birthday in a state with a permissive gun culture that allows teenagers to buy military-grade weapons. According to the district's Congressman Tony Gonzalez, a gun rights advocate, Ramos was arrested four years ago when he was a juvenile after telling people he would shoot up a school, and he spent time in a juvenile correctional facility. He also had many run-ins with police due to family troubles in a small town.

"Something fell between the cracks between then and now to allow this to happen. We need to shake out all the facts. We need to figure out what happened," Gonzalez told Fox News, adding, "If law enforcement identified him four years ago as a threat, we need to figure out how he got removed from that."
Gonzalez and other lawmakers like Texas Senator Ted Cruz also faced public anger from gun control advocates for their unfetterd second amendment defense despite the unending mass shootings that led one commentator to write that "America practices child sacrifice."
Asked by a foreign television reporter why such mass shooting on such a frequency happens only in America, Cruz accused him of having a political agenda in the way he framed the question. "Why is it that people come from all over the world to America? This is the freest, most prosperous, safest country on Earth. And stop being a propagandist," he said before walking off.
Despite the heat from the carnage, Cruz and former President Donald Trump are slated to attend a National Rifle Association convention in Houston, four hours from Uvalde, a gun fiesta that organizers said "will showcase over 14 acres of the latest guns and gear. "
The NRA, on its website, described the event as "a freedom-filled weekend for the entire family." About 70,000 people, including families with children under 18, are expected over the three days of gun worship.
President Biden meanwhile is expected to go to Uvalde on Sunday with the First Lady to offer condolences.
Most conservative Republican lawmakers have refused to acknowledge that the easy availability of guns is at the root of the problem. One GOP Senator, Wisconsin's Ron Johnson blamed "liberal indoctrination" for school shooting, saying," "We stopped teaching values. Now we're teaching wokeness. We're indoctrinating our children with things like Critical Race Theory."