Gov. Greg Abbott, who praised the police response to the Texas school shooting, said on Friday he was “misled” and “livid.”
In previous statements, Mr Abbott told reporters he was repeating what he had been told. “The information given to me turned out to be, in part, inaccurate,” he said.
Mr Abbott said what exactly happened needed to be “thoroughly and comprehensively” investigated.
The governor has previously praised law enforcement for their “incredible courage in running towards gunfire” and their “quick response.”
On Friday, Mr. Abbott was scheduled to attend the National Rifle Association’s annual convention, which is held statewide in Houston. Instead, he addressed the gun rights group’s convention via recorded video and traveled to Uvalde.
At the convention, speaker after speaker took the floor to say that changing US gun laws or further restricting access to guns is not the solution.
“What stops the bad guys with guns are the good guys with guns,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told those gathered in Houston.
Former President Donald Trump was among Republican leaders who spoke at the event, where hundreds of angry gun violence protesters demonstrated outside, including some who held crosses with pictures of the victims of Uvalde.
The motive for the massacre – the nation’s deadliest school shooting since Newtown, Conn., nearly a decade ago – remains under investigation. Authorities said shooter Salvador Ramos had no known criminal or mental health history.
During the siege, frustrated onlookers urged police to charge into the school, witnesses said.
” Go for it ! Go for it ! women yelled at officers shortly after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who observed the scene from outside a house across the street.
Javier Cazares, whose fourth-grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said when he arrived he saw two officers outside the school and about five others escorting students out. of the building. But 15 or 20 minutes passed before officers arrived with shields, equipped to confront the shooter, he said.
As more parents flocked to the school, he and others urged police to act, Mr Cazares said. He heard about four shots before he and the others were ordered back to a parking lot.
“A lot of us were arguing with the police, ‘You all have to go. You all have to do your job. Their response was, “We can’t do our job because you’re interfering,” Cazares said.
The many chilling details of the attack were enough to leave parents gripped with fear.
Visiting a downtown memorial to those killed, Kassandra Johnson from the nearby community of Hondo said she was so worried the day after the attack that she kept her twin boys home from the school.
Before sending the eight-year-olds away, she studied the school building, determining which windows she would have to break to reach them. And she drew hearts on their hands with a marker, so she could identify them if the worst happened, Ms Johnson said, as she placed flowers near 21 white crosses honoring the victims.
“These kids could be my kids,” she said.