One of the young victims of the Texas elementary school shooting could have survived had police would have acted quicker and entered the school, the victim's family said. The mom of the victim was told by first responders that her daughter could have survived but she bled to death while waiting for nearly an hour for police to come to the rescue.
Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez said on CNN's State of the Union that the girl's grieving mother was told by a first responder that her child would have lived if officers hadn't been slow to move in on gunman Salvador Ramos, according to The Hill.
Irresponsible Cops
The fourth-grader was shot in the kidney and died as a result of her injuries. She was one of 19 pupils slain at Robb Elementary in Uvalde on Tuesday. However, she was one of the first people to be shot and bled for more than 40 minutes but police didn't come for help as they were still waiting outside fearing getting shot by Ramos.
"Her child had been shot by one bullet through the back, through the kidney area," Gutierrez told the outlet. "The first responder that they eventually talked to said that their child likely bled out.
"In that span of 30 or 40 minutes extra, that little girl might have lived. So absolutely these mistakes may have led to the passing away of these children as well," the Democratic lawmaker said on Sunday.
Gutierrez said that several "things went wrong" by the time local police responded to the massacre and said he was "disgusted" by police's failure to take action.
Police in Uvalde, Texas, have come under fire for their handling of the atrocity on Tuesday, which left 19 fourth-graders and two instructors dead and 17 others injured, according to police.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security, a person can bleed to death in less than five minutes, which is why lawmakers and physicians alike are slamming Texas police for their lack of response.
Cops Under Fire
According to reports, cops waited outside Robb Elementary School as Ramos continued with his carnage inside one of the classrooms. This happened despite repeated requests from parents to intervene. However, cops were reluctant to move in as they feared getting shot by Ramos.
On Thursday, a day after the shooting, police finally revealed that they didn't rush inside the school to find gunman Ramos, 18, because they were afraid of being killed, and that they may have purposefully locked Ramos in the classroom where he slaughtered 21 people to trap him.
It was later revealed that after arriving at the school, police took over 90 minutes to enter Robb Elementary School. Ramos by that time had killed 21 innocent people with his AR-15 assault rifle.
It's still unclear how many children were in the classroom when the gunman opened fire, how many died instantly, and how many were still alive but injured when police arrived. At least two pupils were sent to a nearby hospital, but by the time they arrived, they had died.
The Department of Justice stated on Sunday that it will conduct a Critical Incident Review of the law enforcement response to the school massacre. Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who allegedly made the call to hold cops back when the shooting began, is one among those drawing criticism for the delay.
There have also been questions over whether Arredondo had a police radio with him outside the school when he made the fateful decision. Meanwhile, witnesses, including a young girl who died, placed at least seven 911 calls for assistance. However, it was not until 12.50 p.m. that police broke into the classroom and killed Ramos.
In fact, after hearing the scenario unfold on scanners, a large number of Border Patrol agents, in addition to school and local police, arrived to the area. It was ultimately a Border Patrol agent who shot dead Ramos.
