Texas school shooting: ‘We failed these children’: ‘We failed these children’: ‘We failed these children’: Agony is compounded by outrage after the latest details about the Uvalde elementary school massacre

“The devastating injuries that many of those kids sustained, there’s no doubt some of those children bled to death while waiting for police to make entry,” said CNN Law Enforcement Analyst Charles Ramsey, a former Philadelphia police commissioner.

“There’s just no question in my mind that probably took place,” Ramsey said Sunday. “There’s no way you can justify that.”

“At the end of the day, everybody failed here,” he said. “We failed these children. We even failed them in the Texas Legislature.”

It’s unclear what changes will happen on the state or federal levels to help curb school shootings and public massacres. The elementary school slaughter in Uvalde marked at least the 30th shooting at a K-12 school in just the first five months of this year.

The suspects in both massacres were 18 years old and had legally purchased their weapons.

The disturbing new timeline

“As first responders we must recognize that innocent life must be defended,” the manual says. “A first responder unwilling to place the lives of the innocent above their own safety should consider another career field.”

Those guidelines apparently weren’t followed in Uvalde.

Uvalde police officers entered the school about two minutes after the shooter, said Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

But the incident commander at the scene — the school district’s police chief — believed the situation had transitioned from an active shooter to a “barricaded subject,” McCraw said.

It’s not clear why the district police chief, Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, may have believed that.

During a window of about 70 minutes, officers went inside the building and called for more resources, such as equipment and negotiators, McCraw said.

Up to 19 officers were standing in the hallway more than 45 minutes before police entered the classroom.

McCraw, the DPS director, said officers should have confronted the shooter immediately.

“It was the wrong decision, period,” he said. “There’s no excuse for that.”

But for Alfred Garza, whose 10-year-old daughter Amerie Jo was killed in the shooting, “it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it just took too long to get in there.”

“Had they gotten there sooner,” Garza said, “and someone would have taken immediate action, we might have more of those children here today — including my daughter.”

Donations of blood, food and funeral services

Since the massacre, graduations and other celebratory events have been canceled as the community mourns the shattering loss of some of its most vulnerable.

Funeral homes in Uvalde have committed to covering costs for families of the 21 victims. Some services will begin Monday.

Even strangers have traveled from hours away to help those suffering in Uvalde.

Omar Rodriguez, the owner of a car detailing business, made 250 hamburgers to raise funds for the victims’ families.

At a friend’s lot on Main Street, Rodriguez set up a large grill, tables and supplies to cook while his family and friends grabbed rags and soap to wash cars for a donation.

The 24-year-old said he couldn’t just stay at home, knowing he could do something to help.

“This is a good little town,” Rodriguez said. “There’s nothing but love here.”

Patrick Johnson, 58, drove for seven hours from his hometown of Harleton, Texas, to Uvalde and set up a table filled with toys for children who haven’t smiled in days.

“There’s a lot of ways to be a blessing to people,” he said. “Whenever something like this happens, I do my research and contact local law enforcement and ask ‘what I can do?’ What does your community need right now?”

Johnson, a father of four, said he broke down and wept when he heard about the shooting.

“I’m not even from this community, but I’m hurting. It makes you think about your own kids,” Johnson said. “It makes you realize it could’ve been you, mourning your children.”