Steel classroom doors have opened outwards in Uvalde, adding a challenge to police
But the secure classroom doors at Robb Elementary School were different. They had metal frames and opened outward, making it impossible to open them with a ram, according to a veteran and former U.S. Customs and Border Protection official who was informed of the May 24 shooting.
It remains unclear how the massacre unfolded, with conflicting accounts of why police waited over an hour before entering the classroom to confront the gunman who shot and killed 19 children and two teachers and injured several others.
But the design of the classroom doors added significantly to the challenge officers faced, according to experts and officials briefed on what happened. As teachers and their students bled and children called 911 for help, officers and officers told the doors were locked struggled to locate keys and tools to get in from strength, officials said.
A generation of massive attacks on American schools has caused a hardening of American classrooms, starting with sturdy, lockable doors designed to protect students from intruders. Experts say these doors should be kept closed at all times to provide maximum protection. At Robb Elementary, however, the doors were apparently unlocked when 18-year-old Salvador Ramos entered.
“A door that opens outward is the worst case scenario when you’re trying to breach it,” said Sgt. Scott Banes of the Fort Worth Police Department, who spent 12 years on a special response team that trained regularly for active shooters and other emergency calls.
If children are being actively killed or dying, officers should do everything they can to get into the classroom, Banes said, even if they don’t have the ideal tools.
“You could use rocks to break windows,” he said. “You could use a hammer on the cinder block walls. You push, push, push until the threat is neutralized or isolated, so he can’t hurt anyone else.
The attack at Robb Elementary lasted 77 minutes. State police are currently investigating why authorities took so long to enter the two adjoining classrooms; the Department of Justice also conducts an after action review.
Police accounts of what happened have changed dramatically in the past two weeks, and news organizations have been gathering details citing documents related to the investigation and interviews with enforcement officials. laws.
Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde School District Police Chief who is at the center of public outcry over the delayed entry, said in an interview with the Texas Tribune published Thursday that the steel door jambs worked to their advantage. of the shooter by preventing officers from entering.
Arredondo, whose attorney’s office said he was unavailable for an interview on Friday, told the Tribune he left his radio behind to better wield his service weapon against the attacker. He also said he tried “dozens of keys” but none matched the classroom doors. It took officers over an hour to locate the correct key and obtain the ballistic shield that protected the BORTAC officers as they walked through the doorway.
Without the shield, anyone opening the doors outward would face a barrage of fire from the shooter’s AR-15 rifle. Two officers had already been grazed by bullets after trying to confront the shooter in the first minutes of the attack; they withdrew as Arredondo treated the incident as a confrontation with a barricaded suspect, rather than an urgent confrontation with an active shooter, authorities said.
In law enforcement, breaching is a specialized skill that officers can spend years perfecting. Some agencies stick to manual breaching, using relatively simple tools like rams and levers. Other officers practice ballistic breaching, using specific shotgun ammunition meant to dissolve when it hits a hard surface, making it potentially safer for anyone on the other side of the line. gate. Many large city SWAT teams use explosive breaches, a quick and effective way to defeat most gates if the operators are well trained.
Steel doors with steel frames that open outward can be one of the most difficult offenses for law enforcement, said Marcus “Sandy” Wall, a retired member of the Houston SWAT team because officers need to open the door instead of breaking it down. The difficulty may vary depending on the material and if the frame is attached to uprights. But the danger increases dramatically when an active shooter fires from the other side of the door, which was the case at Uvalde, Wall said.
Curtis S. Lavarello, executive director of the School Safety Advocacy Council, said secure doors have been added to classrooms across the country and, when locked, they provide excellent protection if a gunman comes onto the scene. campus. But, he insisted, authorities must have a way to open them quickly – and should practice doing so in security drills.
It is unclear whether school officers or local Uvalde police did this.
“It’s mind-boggling for someone with 25+ years in law enforcement that you didn’t walk into that room for over an hour,” Lavarello said.
“The door that opens outward is not a valid excuse not to enter that classroom,” he said. “To say ‘we can’t get a key’ is madness.”
Kenneth S. Trump, a school safety consultant who helps schools and police departments prepare for mass shootings, said there are basic steps authorities can take to avoid the confusion that appears to have plagued Uvalde’s response and kept the agents outside in the hallway.
Police departments should have master keys to all classrooms and floor plans for each building readily available, either in patrol cars or digitally on officers’ devices.
“That way, through planning and preparation, you know what types of doors are in the building, so you can plan how you’re going to breach each room,” Trump said. “That means you probably need a master key, so you won’t wait for Mr. Jing-a-ling to come with 50 keys, and then you guess.”
“You can’t create an emergency plan in the parking lot in the middle of an emergency,” Trump said. “You have to do this tedious work in advance, and it takes attention to detail.”
The BORTAC members who arrived at Robb first were not part of a single team, according to a CBP official with direct knowledge of what happened, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share details. preliminary investigation. One was a field supervisor, the CBP official said. Several had been on routine patrols that day.
BORTAC members generally do not carry battering rams and ballistic shields in their vehicles unless they are preparing for a specific tactical operation against a target such as a hideout, the official said.
In other tactical operations, BORTAC teams may position snipers to track targets through windows. But the windows in Robb’s classroom were tinted or darkened with blinds, the official said, and with the lights off, it was impossible for officers and agents outside to see where the shooter was.
A U.S. Marshal brought the shield to the tactical team, or “stack,” who were preparing to enter the classroom and confront the shooter. Once the officers on site were able to unlock the doors, BORTAC officers led a small team into the classroom. The shooter opened fire, police said, and officers killed him.
What they encountered next was horrific. Officers entering the classroom saw “kids huddled against a wall,” the CBP official said. The children seemed to have huddled together to protect themselves and fell together as the shooter attacked them at point-blank range with the mighty rifle.
One of the officers pulled a still-living child from the pile of small bodies, the official said. Others carried injured and bloodied children to ambulances.
Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician from Uvalde who testified before lawmakers in Washington this week, described the damage he witnessed when the victims were taken to the hospital. “Two children, whose bodies had been pulverized by the bullets fired at them, decapitated, whose flesh had been torn apart, that the only clue as to their identity was the blood-splattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them,” he said.
After other officers and emergency responders took control of the classroom, dozens of Border Patrol agents gathered in the shade of a tree between the school and the road, a said the CBP official. Some officers were in shock, shaking and crying.
Border Patrol agents returned as a group to their post in Uvalde, the official said.
Many had to take off their uniforms and throw them away because they were soaked in blood.