Uvalde Police are admitting they made the wrong decision when responding to the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. As it has been reported, 19 students and two teachers lost their lives after an 18-year-old gunman barricaded himself inside a classroom of the elementary school for roughly an hour.
While the police have admitted the mistake, they did not say just how many lives their decision to wait for backup cost. In a statement made by Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Safety, he revealed children used their cell phones to make numerous calls to 911.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, “From 12:03 to 12:46, 911 dispatchers received numerous calls from within the classroom, including repeated calls from a child whispering that people were dead and begging “‘Please send the police now,’” McCraw revealed.
During this time, 19 law enforcement officers waiting in the hallway. The reason they waited, The Journal reports, was because “the commander on scene believed no lives were at risk.”
The commander believed “it was better to wait until a tactical team could get keys to the classroom before entering.” As McCraw continued, he said, “The on-scene commander at that time believed it had transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject. Obviously, based upon the information we have, children in that classroom were at risk and it was in fact still an active shooter… It was the wrong decision. Period.”
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While talking with CNN, another student came forward to reveal how she survived while she waited for police help. Miah Cerillo is at least the second student to come forward to share her experience.
While speaking with CNN, Miah revealed that she went into survival mode while a gunman held her hostage. After the shooter made eye contact with one of the teachers, he whispered, “Goodnight” before shooting her, she then watched as he continued firing his gun at the second teacher in the room, then the classmates around her.
Miah was hit with bullet fragments during that time. It was sometime after that the gunman, Miah said, started playing loud sad music.
She was one of the students who dialed 911, telling the dispatcher, “Please come, we’re in trouble.” Miah then rubbed her friend’s blood on herself and played dead.
Miah is expected to make a full recovery, physically. But says she’s experiencing hair loss following the tragic event. Miah started to cry in her interview with CNN, saying that it felt like three hours before the police came into the classroom.