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Uvalde Police responding to a shooting at Robb Elementary last May told investigators that they were afraid of the shooter’s AR-15, causing them to delay.
Even though law enforcement officers entered Robb Elementary with body armor on and guns drawn three minutes after a gunman began a shooting rampage that ended up killing 19 children and two teachers, officers waited over 75 minutes before confronting the shooter.
They were afraid of his assault rifle.
In a new report by the Texas Tribune, responding officers told investigators they were afraid to confront the shooter because he had an AR-15.
“You knew that it was definitely an AR,” Uvalde Police Department Sgt. Donald Page said in an interview with investigators after the school shooting. “There was no way of going in…We had no choice but to wait and try to get something that had better coverage where we could actually stand up to him.”
“AR, he has a battle rifle,” an officer can be heard on his bodycam.
Uvalde cops were afraid of AR-15
The shooter legally bought the weapon used to kill 21 people days after turning 18. That weapon caused more than 400 law enforcement officers that were present at the scene to delay engaging with the shooter.
“There is compelling evidence that the law enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary was an abject failure and antithetical to everything we have learned over the last two decades since the Columbine massacre,” an emotional Col. Steve McCraw, Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, testified before legislators.
“We weren’t equipped to make entry into that room without several casualties,” Uvalde Police Department Detective Louis Landry said in a separate investigative interview. He added, “Once we found out it was a rifle he was using, it was a different game plan we would have had to come up with. It wasn’t just going in guns blazing, the Old West style, and take him out.”
Hearing law enforcement officers say a shooter with an assault rifle gave them hesitation while children were being killed will likely strengthen the growing call for an assault weapons ban.
President Biden has vowed that he will ban assault weapons in the U.S.
Earlier this year Illinois became the ninth state to pass a law banning assault weapons.
The new law bans assault weapons, including some semi-automatic firearms, along with high capacity magazines and rapid firing devices.