Robb elementary school in Uvalde

Texas law enforcement agencies are facing escalating criticism over their response to the mass shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, after it emerged that the gunman remained locked inside a classroom for up to an hour while large numbers of police officers were amassed outside the room without taking any action.

At a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Texas authorities confirmed that the shooter had been locked inside a classroom for an hour before he was confronted and killed. He committed all his 21 murders inside that room – including 19 children and two teachers.

“Numerous” police officers had assembled just outside the room, the authorities admitted, but did not make any attempt to break through the door during that hour. Instead, they decided to pull back and wait until a specialist tactical unit arrived, while evacuating other children and staff from the building.

Victor Escalon, the south Texas regional director of the state’s department of public safety, told the press conference that armed officers arrived at Robb elementary about four minutes after the shooter entered through an unlocked side door at about 11.40am on Tuesday. Yet it was “approximately an hour later” that a tactical team of US Border Patrol arrived at the school, burst into the classroom and killed the gunman….

The Associated Press reported that as the massacre was unfolding, several parents and other local people expressed distress at the apparent hesitation of law enforcement to storm the school. Juan Carranza, who lives beside the school, told the news agency he witnessed women shouting at officers: “Go in there! Go in there!”

Javier Cazares, whose 10-year-old daughter Jacklyn was killed, told AP that police appeared unprepared.

“More could have been done,” he said.

He said he and other residents gathered outside the school started to plan their own rescue mission as the gunman remained locked inside.

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” he said.

A video recorded by residents and posted on social media captured in real time the anger of parents at the spectacle of armed police standing outside the school and not going in. “They are all f**king parking outside, man – they need to go in there, they are all in there. The cops aren’t doing s**t but standing outside,” shouted one father.

A distressed mother yelled: “I’m going to go. All these kids are in the school and they are just standing there. Our kids are there, my son is right there.”

As tension mounted, a police officer is filmed trying to push parents back from the side of the school. “You know that there are kids, right? There are little kids. They don’t know how to defend themselves from the shooter,” the father said.

One mother who spoke to the Wall Street Journal said officers put her in handcuffs for “interfering in an active investigation” when she urged them to enter the school. “The police were doing nothing,” Angeli Rose Gomez told the Journal. Authorities have disputed her account.

Jose Cazares, whose niece Jackie died in the shooting, said her family wants answers about how police responded that day: