Almost a dozen cops were inside Robb Elementary School in Texas within three minutes of the gunman entering the campus last month, CNN reports. Among the 11 officers to arrive at the scene of the rampage—during which 19 children and two adults were killed—was Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo, an anonymous law enforcement source told the outlet. The policing response to the mass shooting has already been heavily criticized for taking over an hour to confront the gunman as parents pleaded with officers to enter the school. The new timeline would appear to suggest cops could have intervened much sooner. Separate information revealed by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV, which is set to be heard at a public Texas Senate hearing Tuesday, claims police were equipped with the weapons and protection necessary to neutralize the shooter much faster than the agonizing 77 minutes it actually took for the carnage to end. The latest revelations come after it was reported Saturday that officers didn’t even attempt to open the door to a classroom where children were trapped with the gunman during the spree.
