Gunman was inside school for over an hour
It was 11:28 am (local time) when the Ford truck slammed into a ditch behind behind the low-slung Texas school and the driver jumped out carrying an AR15-style rifle.
Twelve minutes after that, authorities say, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos was in the hallways of Robb Elementary School. Soon, he entered a fourthgrade classroom. And there, he killed 19 schoolchildren and two teachers in a still-unexplained spasm of violence.
At 12:58pm, law enforcement radio chatter said Ramos had been killed and the siege was over.
What happened in those 90 minutes has fuelled mounting public anger over law enforcement’s response to the rampage.
Yesterday, authorities largely ignored questions about why officers had not been able to stop the shooter sooner, with Victor Escalon, regional director for the Texas Department of Public
Safety, telling reporters he had “taken all those questions into consideration” and would offer updates later.
Texas safety officials called a media briefing to clarify the timeline of the attack, but by the time it ended, it had added to the troubling questions surrounding the attack, including about the time it took police to reach the scene and confront the gunman.
Escalon said during the hour the shooter was inside, officers called for backup, negotiators and tactical teams, while evacuating students and teachers.
Many other details of the case and the response remained murky. During the siege, frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the school, according to witnesses.
“Go in there! Go in there!” women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who watched the scene from outside a house across the street.