It was the doors all along.
We should have figured.
Uvalde high school had doors like a safe in a heist film.
The classroom doors at Robb Elementary School – which had metal frames and opened outwards – presented an extra obstacle for law enforcement as they responded to the massacre that killed 19 children and two teachers.
The door design is meant to keep an attacker from forcing their way in from the outside. But with 18-year-old shooter Salvador Ramos already inside the Uvalde school on May 24, the design back-fired and officers were not immediately able to get inside and prevent further carnage, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
“An outward-opening door is the worst-case scenario when you’re trying to breach,” Sgt. Scott Banes of the Fort Worth Police Department, who spent 12 years on a special response team that trained for active shooters and similar calls, told the paper.
Breaching such doors can be particularly dangerous when a shooter is on the other side, especially since the authorities reportedly were not armed initially with tactical shields. Without the shields, anyone opening the door would be vulnerable to gunfire, the paper reported.
This survivor from Uvalde details how the police which he calls cowards, left the school and retreated which allowed the killer to continue his rampage! pic.twitter.com/hwSxpBLXrc
— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) June 7, 2022
Another issue was the tactical teams were equipped with heavy, cylinder-shaped battering ram agents that are well-suited for breaking through the deadbolt locks on the doors of residential homes — but posed a problem with the classroom doors, according to a current and a former US Customs and Border Protection official who have been briefed on the shooting.
Marcus “Sandy” Wall, a retired member of the Houston SWAT team, told the outlet that breaching the outward-opening doors with steel frames is not efficient because first responders need to pry them open instead of ram through them.
The task can range in difficulty, based on hardware and whether the frame is attached to studs, Wall said.
They don’t have a problem getting your door open.
But these are… really special doors.
We need to forgive the cops.
As Ted Cruz says, they are literally gods walking among us, who can do no wrong. So if they say they couldn’t open a door, they couldn’t open a door.
#BelieveAllCops
All that tactical gear, not a shred of courage. 40% of the city’s budget to stand by and let children die.
Police at Uvalde literally stood outside and refused to go in after the shooter and even stopped parents from helping their kids. #Uvalde pic.twitter.com/lOUXBDu7XK
— Anthea (@Anthea06274890) May 27, 2022
🚨Graphic language warning. Video from outside of the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, with the parents of the kids inside getting anxious at how long the police were taking to go in and police yelling at them to stand back. (via @Star5AtNight) pic.twitter.com/xK2CQ8gMwE
— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) May 26, 2022