Why did it take cops more than an hour to storm the classroom and kill the gunman?
Everything about the Robb Elementary school massacre is grim. Nineteen children and two teachers shot dead. The husband of one of the teachers dying from a heart attack two days later. Then there are the bone-chilling stories of how the kids who were targeted in this barbaric assault, mostly aged 10 and 11, tried to avoid being killed. One reportedly smeared herself with some of her friend’s blood and then played dead. This was a truly hellish event.
Incredibly, there is another layer to this terrible act – the alarming failures of the authorities. On top of the moral vacuum in which the shooter was operating, there was the bureaucratic disarray of those charged with protecting citizens from such wicked individuals. Children were stuck in the classroom with the killer, with the mass murderer of their friends, for more than an hour before police entered and shot the gunman dead. This is one of the most extraordinary facts from that dreadful day in Uvalde. It is difficult to make sense of it.
