Abbott Was ‘Misled’ about Police Inaction in Uvalde Shooting, Says FBI Investigating

Texas governor Greg Abbott lamented on Friday the changing official account of Tuesday’s shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, while saying that the FBI is investigating the conduct of officials.

Abbott’s remarks came after a high-profile press conference Friday by Texas Department of Public Safety director Steven McCraw in Uvalde. During his remarks, McCraw said up to 19 police officers had entered the hallways of the school during the massacre, but — after initially engaging the shooter — fell back and did not breach the classroom door. The incident commander at the scene, chief of police Peter Arredondo, judged that the situation was “no longer an active shooting” but a “barricaded subject” — presuming all children inside the two connected classrooms to be dead, even as some were calling 911 to plead for help. From the arrival of police, it took 50 minutes for the door to be breached by a U.S. Border Patrol tactical team, whose agents killed the shooter. “The decision was wrong. Period,” said McCraw.

These remarks, however, appeared to contradict those made by Victor Escalon, the Public Safety Department regional director responsible for Uvalde, who defended the conduct of officers in a press conference on Thursday. At that press conference, Escalon had declined to answer reporters’ questions about the period between 12 and 12:50 p.m., from when police arrived to when the shooter was killed.

At another press conference called at 4 p.m. Friday local time to announce a support plan for the families of victims, Abbott criticized the changing police accounts of the story as reported in the media. “The information I was given turned out, in part, to be inaccurate,” he said. “I was misled, and I am absolutely livid,” Abbott added. As governor, Abbott oversees the Texas Department of Public Safety, which has been leading the investigation into the incident.

“It is imperative that the leaders of the investigation get down to the very second with 100 percent accuracy,” Abbott said. “Law enforcement is going to earn the trust of the public,” he added. “Every action by those officials is under investigation by both the Texas Rangers and by the FBI.”

Abbott’s remarks suggested that an investigation into the actions of police, separate from the ongoing investigation into the incident, may be called by the state in response to the mounting criticism of Uvalde police officers. Earlier, Representative Joaquin Castro (D., Texas) sent a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray asking the bureau to investigate the Uvalde Police Department and U.S. Border Patrol’s response to the incident, using their “maximum authority” in the situation.

At McCraw’s press conference, the FBI special agent in charge Oliver Rich had said that local authorities would be leading the investigation and that the bureau would be playing a supportive role. Abbott’s remarks appear to contradict Rich’s. In response to National Review’s request for comment, the FBI referred us to a social media post of Rich’s remarks, where he claimed that the Bureau would investigate only if there was a “federal nexus”.