In the hours after Texas police gave an updated timeline of this week’s elementary school mass shooting, public scrutiny grew over an apparent delay in stopping the shooter. The Texas Department of Public Safety held a news conference Friday to clarify the timeline, as well address the anger over the police response to the shooting. According to Texas DPS Director Steven McCraw, the timeline went as follows:
- 11:27 a.m.: The door the shooter entered was propped open by a teacher
- 11:28 a.m.: Suspect crashes his car into a ditch, teacher runs to grab a phone, door remains propped open, two people at a nearby funeral home go to investigate the crash. Suspect shoots at the two people, misses.
- 11:30 a.m.: Teacher calls 9-1-1.
- 11:31 a.m.: Suspect reaches last row of vehicles in school parking lot, begins shooting at school, patrol vehicles arrive at funeral home.
- 11:33 a.m.: Suspect enters school, begins shooting into a classroom before barricading himself inside.
- 11:35 a.m.: Three officers entered the school through the same door the suspect entered. Two of the three were grazed by bullets from the suspect. The officers were followed in by four additional officers.
- 11:37 – 11:44 a.m.: More gunfire.
- 11:51 a.m.: Police sergeant, USB agents began to arrive on the scene.
- 12:03 p.m.: More officers arrive in the hallway of the school. There were up to 19 officers in the hallway at that time. Teacher inside classroom calls 9-1-1.
- 12:10 p.m.: Teacher inside classroom calls 9-1-1 again, reports multiple people were dead.
- 12:15 p.m.: Border Patrol tactical agents began arriving.
- 12:16 p.m.: Teacher inside classroom calls 9-1-1, says 8-9 students were alive.
- 12:19 p.m.: Person in a different classroom calls 9-1-1, is told to hang up by a student in the classroom.
- 12:21 p.m.: Suspect fired another shot at the classroom door. Officers moved down the hallway.
- 12:36 p.m.: Student inside classroom calls 9-1-1. Asks dispatch to send in police twice, before reporting she could hear officers next door.
- 12:50 p.m.: Officers get into the classroom using keys they got from the janitor, kill suspect.
The Friday news conference came after Texas DPS Regional Director Victor Escalon declined to explain why police had not been able to stop the school shooter sooner. On Friday, McGraw said the delay in entering the classroom was based on a decision from the incident commander that Ramos was barricaded in a classroom without children and that he was no longer an immediate threat as an active shooter. This turned out to not be the case, with McGraw revealing that there were children in the classroom.
“With the benefit of hindsight from where I’m sitting now, of course it wasn’t the right decision, it was the wrong decision period. There’s no excuse for that,” McGraw said Friday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
