‘I was misled,’ Abbott said at a press conference in Uvalde on Friday about the Tuesday attack at Robb Elementary School, in which Salvador Ramos, 18, murdered 19 kids and two instructors before being shot dead by cops.
‘I am livid about what happened. I was on this very stage two days ago, and I was telling the public information that had been told to me in a room just a few yards from where we are write now.
‘I wrote hand notes in sequential order.
‘When I came out on that stage and told the public what happened, it was a recitation of what everyone told me.
‘As everybody has learned, the information I was given turned out – in part – to be inaccurate.
‘I am absolutely livid about that.’
Abbott said that law enforcement leaders must ‘get to the bottom of every fact, with absolute certainty.’
He said it was ‘inexcusable’ that families may have suffered from inaccurate information, and ordered law enforcement to ‘get down to every second what happened, and explain it to the public – but most importantly, to the victims.’
Abbott defended the police and other local officials’ conduct on Wednesday, praising their bravery and arguing that the situation might have been much worse.
However, doubts have been raised concerning law enforcement’s behavior, particularly why they waited an hour outside the school while Salvador Ramos, 18, remained free inside the building murdering 19 students and two instructors.
Initially, authorities said Ramos was wearing body armor and was accosted by an armed guard; but, on Thursday, they conceded that neither of these claims were accurate.
They said Ramos was locked in a classroom, but it was revealed on Wednesday night that the authorities needed a key to enter the door, prompting pressing questions about why they didn’t smash it down.
They also claimed that the delay in entering the school was due to the arrival of negotiators, which Tucker Carlson, the avowedly pro-law enforcement Fox News personality, mocked on Thursday night.
Officials confessed on Friday that during the attack, roughly 20 officers stood in a hallway outside the classrooms, believing that any possible victims inside were already dead.
‘Of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision,’ Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said at a news conference.
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