The decision, made by the incident commander not to enter the Uvalde school in the wake of the shooting and wait for the tactical team, was wrong, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said on Friday.
"The decision was made that this was a barricaded subject situation, there was time to retreat the kids and wait for a tactical team with the equipment to go ahead and breach the door and take on the subject at that point," McCraw said during a press conference.
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"There were 19 officers there, in fact, there were plenty of officers to do whatever needed to be done with one exception - the incident commander inside believed he needed more equipment and more officers to do a tactical breach at that point... Where I'm sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period," he said.
McCraw explained that the on-scene commander considered the situation transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject and there were no more children at risk.
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"Obviously, based upon the information we have, there were children in that classroom that were at risk and it was in fact still an active shooter situation and not a barricaded subject," he said.
