Federal agents entered Uvalde school to kill gunman despite native police initially asking them to wait

Federal agents who went to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday to confront a gunman who killed 19 children had been instructed by native police to attend and not enter the school — and then decided after about half an hour to ignore that preliminary guidance and find the shooter, say two senior federal law enforcement officials.

According to the officers, agents from BORTAC, the Customs and Border Safety tactical unit, and ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arrived on the scene between noon and 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday. Native legislation enforcement asked them to wait, and then instructed HSI agents to help pull kids out of the windows.

The BORTAC team, armed with tactical gear, at first didn't transfer towards the gunman. After roughly half-hour passed, however, the federal brokers opted of their very own volition to lead the “stack” of officers inside the varsity and take down the shooter. 

Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Division of Public Safety, said Friday that Peter Arredondo, the chief of police for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, had stopped not less than 19 officers from breaking into the college as the gunman opened hearth for a minimum of an hour. 

Arredondo believed that the shooter had barricaded himself and that the kids weren't beneath an lively risk, mentioned McCraw at a news convention.

“From the advantage of hindsight the place I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the proper choice. It was a flawed determination. Interval. There was no excuse for that,” McCraw mentioned. “There have been loads of officers to do what needed to be done, with one exception, is that the incident commander inside believed he needed extra gear and more officers to do a tactical breach at the moment.”

In line with McCraw, Arredondo believed there was no lively threat, so instead of sending officers in, he frolicked discovering keys that might let him into the varsity. Throughout this time, nevertheless, Ramos had unencumbered entry to hold out the assault. Nineteen college students and two academics have been killed.

Arredondo was not present among legislation enforcement officers standing with McCraw on Friday, and McCraw did not explicitly identify him. 

Arredondo didn't immediately return a request for comment by NBC Information.

Two teachers and 19 college students, many of them fourth graders, were killed inside a single classroom throughout Tuesday’s bloodbath.

McCraw mentioned Friday that two students inside the varsity dialed 911 a number of times through the shooting and begged authorities for help. The calls began at 12:03 p.m. and lasted by way of most of the hour.

At 12:47 p.m., one of the students referred to as a 911 operator and mentioned “please ship the police now.” 

Each students survived, McCraw said.

Julia Ainsley is a correspondent covering the Department of Homeland Security and the Division of Justice for the NBC News Investigative Unit.