Uvalde Cops Assumed Classroom Door Was Locked, Didnt Even Try To Open It

Law enforcement officers who responded to the school shooting in Uvalde , Texas, last month spent more than an hour waiting for a key to open a door that was unlocked the whole time.

But nobody knew that, because nobody tried opening it in the first place.

In stunning testimony Tuesday, Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, walked Texas legislators through what he called an “abject failure” of a police response to the shooting, in which a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.

That failure included failing to check the classroom door to see if it was locked.

“I don’t believe, based on the information that we have right now, that that door was ever secured,” McCraw told the state Senate.

“The door was unsecured and, we’ve gone back and checked in our interviews, and [asked], ‘Did anybody touch the door and try it?’” he continued. “Do you need a key? Well, one of the things they teach you in active shooter training: How about trying the door and seeing if it’s unlocked?”

“And of course, no one had,” McCraw said.

McCraw said that even had the door been locked, law enforcement officers responding to a school shooting have tools and other means of breaching a door.