Texas gunman barricaded in classroom with victims for hour before raid ended siege

UVALDE, Texas, (Reuters) - The gunman in the Texas elementary school massacre barged unchallenged through an unlocked door, then killed 19 children and two teachers while holed up in their classroom for an hour before a tactical team stormed in and killed him, police said yesterday.

The latest official details from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) on Tuesday's mass shooting differed sharply from initial police accounts and raised questions about security measures at the school and the response of law enforcement.

The school district in Uvalde, Texas, about 80 miles (130 km) west of San Antonio, has a standing policy of locking all entrances, including classroom doors, as a safety precaution. But one student told Reuters some doors were left unlocked the day of the shooting to allow visiting parents to come and go for an "awards day" event.

The newly detailed chronology also came hours after videos emerged showing desperate parents outside Robb Elementary School during the attack. They pleaded with officers to storm the building, and some fathers had to be restrained.

The human toll of the rampage, which ranks as the deadliest U.S. school shooting in nearly a decade, deepened with media reports that the husband of one of the slain teachers died of a heart attack on Thursday while preparing for his wife's funeral.

At a briefing for reporters, DPS spokesperson Victor Escalon said the gunman, Salvador Ramos, 18, made his way unimpeded on to the school grounds after crashing his pickup truck nearby. The carnage began 12 minutes later.

Preliminary police reports had said that Ramos, who drove to the school from his home after shooting and wounding his grandmother there, was confronted by a school-based police officer as he ran toward the school.