Back in May, the Uvalde response time from when officers first arrived on scene to when they went into the school was an hour and 14 minutes. By the time the gunman was taken down, 19 students and two teachers were killed. On Monday, Nashville officers were able to take down the gunman within 14 minutes of receiving the initial call.
"Uvalde was the absolute 100% thing not to do in an active shooter situation. They failed because they were afraid. They were afraid of the power of an AR-15," Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez said.
Police response times to school shootings has been a big topic of discussion for the last 10 months. Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety Steve McCraw said that officers responding to the Uvalde situation looked for a master key to get into the classroom but never actually tried to open the door. He also criticized the on-scene commander for waiting to confront the shooter instead of breaking through, finding the gunman and taking him down.
"In Uvalde they had radios that didn't work, communication systems that didn't work, police that weren't talking to one another and they weren't talking to dispatch in an effective way. It's very clearly evident that everything in Uvalde that could have gone wrong went wrong. Not only did we have police that just simply lacked the requisite amount of courage to go in and do their jobs," Gutierrez said.
Although in Nashville, the doors in the Covenant school were locked, the gunman still fired through them. Gutierrez told us even with that, there was still a difference.
"We saw police going to the building and directly go to the assailant and take the assailant down," Gutierrez said.
Nearly 400 law enforcement officials responded to the Uvalde school shooting. In Nashville, officers Rex Englebert and Michael Collazo were just two of the five officers that came across the shooter.
"What we saw in Nashville were officers that valiantly, courageously and efficiently did their jobs. It was the best video on how to do their jobs ad do it in an effective way," Gutierrez said.
Roland Gutierrez told us he is pushing 21 school safety and gun violence bills in honor of the 21 victims of Uvalde.
