Michigan sheriff recalls response to Oxford following deadly Texas shooting

OXFORD, Mich. (WNEM) - New controversy surrounds who is responsible for police waiting outside a Uvalde, Texas classroom for nearly an hour before border patrol agents went in and killed the gunman.

The shooter killed 19 children and two teachers to at Robb Elementary School.

The Oakland County Sheriff said when chaos erupted in Oxford last November, his team didn’t hesitate, they did what they were trained to do.

“I know what’s happening right now in Texas and I know they’re going through, not just the worst day of their life, but having a lot of second layer questions of: why did the response do what it did,” Sheriff Mike Bouchard said.

Bouchard is recalling his own agency’s own response to the shooting at Oxford High School last November. He said it took minutes from the first 911 call to when the suspect was apprehended. Five minutes, in fact.

Bouchard says every second counted.

“On that terrible, terrible day in oxford, they all went in immediately. They did exactly what I asked them to do and what their training had taught them,” Bouchard said.

In the few minutes it took for suspect Ethan crumbly to surrender, four students had died, and seven other people were injured.

Tuesday at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, 21 lives were lost, and it took nearly 90 minutes to end the rampage, a time delay that police attribute to a series of mistakes.

“The on-scene commander considered a barricaded subject and that there was time and there were no more children at risk,” said Director Steve McCraw from the Texas Department of Public Safety. “From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision. Period. There was no excuse for that.”

Authorities said the suspect entered the school shortly after 11:30 a.m., and by 12:05 p.m., at least 19 officers and border patrol agents assembled in the hallway outside of the classrooms containing children locked inside with the gunman.

There were multiple calls to 911 from inside, begging for help.

It wasn’t until 12:50 p.m. that police breached the door and killed the shooter.

“There’s no way that someone hadn’t been hearing gunshots, given how many people he had shot. If you’re hearing gunshots, that’s not a barricaded moment. That’s a rescue moment, that’s a respond moment, that’s an entry moment,” Bouchard said. “To see police officers standing outside while kids are getting shot, it’s unacceptable. I don’t care what it takes. Cars are replaceable, doors are replaceable, walls are replaceable. Kids are not.”