Texas Official On Police Not Quickly Confronting School Shooter: "It Was The Wrong Decision"

Steven McCraw, director of Texas Department of Public Safety, said that officers made "the wrong decision" during the Uvalde school shooting.

Following the ongoing criticism Texas officers have faced in their handling of the Robb Elementary School shooting on Tuesday (May 24), Steven McCraw, director of Texas Department of Public Safety, has taken accountability for the officers' actions (or lack thereof). In a report from Axios, McCraw acknowledged during a Friday press hearing that officers made "the wrong decision" to assume that no children were at risk in the classroom, where the shooter, Salvador Ramos, was barricaded in.

“From the benefit of hindsight, where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision,” McCraw said. “It was the wrong decision, period.”

McCraw had previously said that law enforcement had responded in a timely manner to the shooting, telling the Associated Press that "[Law enforcement] did engage immediately. They did contain [the shooter] in the classroom."

Since the incident occurred, videos of parents begging police officers to enter the school as the shooting was taking place have surfaced on social media.

“These cops are right here. Bro, there’s a [expletive] shooting at the school and these [expletive] cops are telling everybody to leave, dude, while everybody’s here trying to pick up their [expletive] kids,” the man filming in the video below can be heard saying.

According to a separate report from The Wall Street Journal, some parents were even handcuffed and tased as they tried to get officers to go into the school.