The elite Border Patrol team that led the effort in taking down the gunman who killed 21 people, including 19 students, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022, reportedly experienced the same decision-making problems and miscommunication in entering the classroom where the shooter barricaded himself as hundreds of other law enforcement officials that day.
Members of the Border Patrol tactical unit, BORTAC, and other police officials stormed the classroom, engaged in a brief firefight with the 18-year-old gunman, Salvador Ramos, and shot him dead.
But the San Antonio-Express News reported Friday, based on Border Patrol agent statements and bodycam footage, that 38 minutes had passed since the first member of BORTAC arrived on the scene at 12:12 p.m. local time to when the tactical team stormed the classroom and shot and killed Ramos.
They even waited after hearing a fresh burst of gunfire from inside the classroom at 12:20 p.m. and after U.S. Marshals delivered a ballistic body shield that could withstand rifle blasts to the school, the newspaper reported.
They, like the more than 300 other law enforcement personnel on the scene, were subjected to bad information circulated by other officers, such as the gunman having shot himself — he had not. And they tried locating a master key to open a door to the classrooms, assuming it was locked — although by all indications, it was not.
The BORTAC agents led a stack of law enforcement officials into the classroom at 12:50 p.m., nearly 90 minutes after Ramos first entered the school at 11:33 a.m.
The newspaper reported three BORTAC agents — Christopher Merrell, Warren Becker III, and Paul Guerrero — were given the Secretary’s Valor Award by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, even though investigations depicted the law enforcement response that day as disastrous, maybe the worst in the history of mass shootings.
Guerrero declined to comment to the Express-News and Merrell and Becker did not respond to messages seeking comment, the newspaper reported.
All provided written statements to the Texas Rangers and FBI within two days of the massacre, and both agencies have been investigating the incident and the police’s response. The Uvalde County district attorney is deciding whether to bring charges against any of the officers who were at the school that day.
The newspaper reported U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, is reviewing its agents' response to the shooting through its Office of Professional Responsibility.
In the wake of the massacre, five officers from the Uvalde school police force, Uvalde Police Department and Texas Department of Public Safety were fired or resigned under threat of dismissal.
School Police Chief Pedro "Pete" Arredondo, one of the first officers to arrive at the scene, was fired in August for concluding the gunman wasn't an active shooter but a barricaded suspect, which calls for a careful, methodical police response. If it was determined Ramos was an active shooter, police doctrine calls for officers to confront the gunman and "stop the killing" immediately, regardless of the risk to police.
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