A top Texas official said Tuesday that law enforcement"s response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was an "abject failure," NBC News has reported.
In his comments before a state Senate committee hearing in Austin, Steve McCraw, the director of the Department of Public Safety, said the lives of police officers were valued more than those of children as gunfire tore through that south Texas campus on May 24, according to the report.
"One hour, 14 minutes and 8 seconds. That"s how long the children waited and the teachers waited in rooms 111 (and 112) to be rescued," McCraw was quoted as saying.
"We do know this, there"s compelling evidence that the law enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary was an abject failure and antithetical to everything we"ve learned over the last two decades since the Columbine massacre," he said.
At least 19 children and two adults were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.
The suspect, identified as 18-year-old Uvalde High School student Salvador Rolando Ramos, was killed by responding officers.
