Uvalde law enforcement officers' tactical response was 'heartbreaking:' Rep. Crenshaw
Texas congressman analyzes police's tactical response to Uvalde school shooting as 'heartbreaking' details continue to emerge
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}During an interview on "Fox & Friends Weekend," Sunday, Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw responded to emerging reports on the various blunders committed by law enforcements during their tactical response to the Uvalde school shooting.
REP. DAN CRENSHAW: …On this Memorial Day weekend, we're memorializing small children who were executed by a madman. It's hard to fathom that kind of evil. Look at me personally, I'm pretty desensitized to a lot of things. But you cannot be desensitized to this. This is something that hits you real deep. And now we're looking at how it could have been prevented and what kind of mistakes were made.
Uvalde Civic Center following a shooting earlier in the day at Robb Elementary School. (William Luther/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)
There's two types of tactical scenarios in general when you're when you're going on a target. One is there's no hostages. Right. There's no need to worry about innocence in the line of fire. And the other is that there is hostages. Now, this completely changes the kind of tactics that you do. You have to throw self-preservation out the window. If there are hostages inside, you have to put their safety before yours. It's much higher risk for the operator going in, and therefore it's scarier. And that appears to be what happened here. It was clearly a scary scenario.
…
They don't want to get shot, and so they don't do it even though they've had the training that specifically says that you need to put their lives before your life. And the training specifically says in the manual that if you don't like that, you should find another career field. And the fact that that was not followed is heartbreaking. And we need to know why it wasn't followed. We need to know whose call it was, why they made that call. It was a little strange to me that the person in charge on the ground was an ISD officer, as opposed to a city officer, who maybe has more experience in day--to-day crime fighting and law enforcement. So that could have been a potential breakdown as well. And if he doesn't have a radio, well, my God, that means that he's not getting the word that children are calling 911 from inside. And that's a real problem.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CRENSHAW CALLS FOR ‘ACCOUNTABILITY’ IN UVALDE POLICE RESPONSE: ‘PROTOCOLS WERE NOT FOLLOWED’
WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE: