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Greg Abbott slams Uvalde School District for hiring officer under investigation for botched response to massacre

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Uvalde school officials announced they had fired newly hired district officer Crimson Elizondo, who was allegedly one of the officers under investigation for failing to act during the May massacre, in which a gunman shot and killed 19 children and two teachers.

Elizondo was a state trooper at the time of the shooting and was hired over the summer by the district where she would presumably be tasked with protecting some of the children who had survived the horrific ordeal.

But one day later CNN identified herthe district fired Elizondo.

“We are deeply distressed by the information that was released last night regarding one of our recently hired employees, Crimson Elizondo,” read a statement from the district.

“We sincerely apologize to the families of the victims and the greater community of Uvalde for the pain this revelation has caused.”

RELATED: Video shows officer who wanted to save Uvalde’s classroom teacher’s wife was restrained

Crimson Elizondo said she would have entered, if…

Crimson Elizondo was shown on surveillance video outside Robb Elementary School as the massacre unfolded inside, handgun drawn.

She was one of first officers on stage.

Elizondo is one of seven officers being investigated for what the Texas DPS cites as “actions that may be inconsistent with training and requirements.”

CNN reports that she was not properly equipped and told investigators that she was not comfortable entering the school without the equipment.

Crimson Elizondo was shown in body camera footage telling a fellow officer that his discomfort might not have been so all-consuming if one of the children inside had been his.

“If my son had been in there, I wouldn’t have been out,” she said. “I promise you.”

RELATED: Surveillance video shows Uvalde police bumping fists and using hand sanitizer during school massacre

If my son had been there…

What makes Crimson Elizondo’s comments particularly infuriating – aside from the fact that it was his job to protect other people’s children – is the fact that the video outside the school shows parents who sought come in and save their children from being held.

One such parent, Angeli Rose Gomez, had to travel 40 miles from her job as a farmhand to school after learning of the lockdown due to an active shooter. Once there, she was would have been handcuffed for allegedly being “uncooperative” by US Marshals.

Gomez says she convinced one of the officers to release her and, after being released, jumped the fence, rushed into the school herself even though shots were reportedly still being fired and fled with her children.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is furious that Uvalde school officials hired Elizondo over the summer in the first place and he claims they knew she was under investigation when they did.

Abbott claims the district contacted Texas DPS before hiring her and were told “she had actions inconsistent with the department’s training and requirements.”

They seem to have hired her anyway.

“So this school district had all the information about the person they chose to hire, and it’s up to the school district – not the DPS, no one else – to take responsibility for the bad decision they made. took,” Abbott said.

In addition to Elizondo’s actions and the ensuing investigation, several other police officers came under heavy criticism when surveillance video of Uvalde’s shooting was made public.

Surveillance video obtained by the Austin American Statesman showed a scene in which heavily armed and heavily armored officers from multiple departments do little to stop the carnage that unfolded over a span of 77 minutes.

Evidence shows that even when the attack is carried out, officers find time to throw a punch and time to use hand sanitizer.

Crimson Elizondo wasn’t the only officer standing outside because the children killed weren’t his own.

A Texas House of Representatives Commission of Inquiry published a report showing that “376 law enforcement officers” had rushed to the scene of the massacre, but it took over an hour for the gunman to be “finally confronted and killed”.

Colonel Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, called the response to the shooting an “abject failure” during a hearing before a Texas Senate committee.

More than a dozen students in the classroom were still alive during the period when the surveillance video police inside the school hesitated and others stopped parents from trying to save their own children on the outside.

Many victims were bleeding from the injuries they had sustained. One of the teachers, the wife of an officer who have been selected to enter the classroom, died while being transported by ambulance to the hospital.

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