Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson ripped law enforcement’s response to the Uvalde shooting.
The gunman, Salvador Ramos, reportedly barricaded himself inside the building for 30-60 minutes before law enforcement entered the fourth-grade classroom. The Texas Department of Security regional director Victor Escalon said at a Thursday press conference that Ramos fired shots outside the school for 12 minutes before entering the building.
Carlson suggested during Thursday’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that government officials “ignored the facts” and “lied” to the American people on what occurred leading up to and during the shooting. He then raised questions as to why it “took so long” for authorities to respond to gunfires outside of the school.
“Why did that take so long? That is a fair question, in fact it’s a critical question. Even at the Parkland school shooting when police staged outside as students were being murdered, police wound up inside the building 11 minutes after the shooter,” Carlson said. “But in this case, it was 16 minutes. Why was that? We have a right to know. But today, police wouldn’t say.”
Carlson played footage of the press conference held by Escalon where he was pressed on why it took several minutes for authorities to enter the building. He said the department did not have all of the background information to answer that question.
Carlson said though it is difficult to account everything that happened in an incident like this, authorities should be able to answer certain questions, including whether there were armed security guards present at the time of the shooting. (RELATED: Uvalde Student Covered Herself In Blood And Pretended To Be Dead During Shooting, Her Family Says)
“You would know right away if it happened or it didn’t,” he continued. “It didn’t happen, but they said it did happen. That’s a lie. Why did they lie?”
He played additional footage of Escalon saying the officers waited for backup because they needed crisis “negotiators” and proper equipment to exchange with the shooter.
“No matter how pro-law enforcement you are, and we are, there’s only so much B.S. you can take in the face of a tragedy like this. We’re waiting for specialized equipment? You have an 18-year-old with a firearm and little kids being killed. What kind of specialty equipment do you need? And negotiators, really? As children are being murdered?”
The host pointed to police dodging questions on how Ramos barricaded the room and the reason officers could breach through the door. CNN’s Crime and Justice correspondent Shimon Prokupecz pressed Escalon on the issue at the briefing, where the police official said he would “circle back” to his questions.
“So two days after this massacre, authorities are slowly admitting that everything they told us was in fact, untrue. There was no school resource officer, they’re not even sure how the door was barricaded,” Carlson said.
Police officials initially reported that Ramos confronted an armed school resource officer upon entering the building. Escalon announced at the conference that those reports are inaccurate and that a door appeared to be unlocked.
“It was reported that a school district police officer confronted the suspect that was making entry. Not accurate,” Escalon said. “He walked in unobstructed initially. So from the grandmother’s house to the bar ditch, to the school, into the school, he was not confronted by anybody, to clear the record on that.”
Police tackled, pepper sprayed and handcuffed parents attempting to enter the building to rescue their children, including Angeli Rose Gomez, who eventually made her way into the school and retrieved her two kids.
