A Uvalde police officer arrived at Robb Elementary School before the mass shooting with a rifle and had a chance to shoot the alleged gunman, Salvador Ramos, according to a report from The New York Times.
The officer, who was armed with an AR-15 rifle, had a brief chance to shoot Ramos as he approached the school but declined to do so for fear that he would hit children playing around the building, a senior sheriff’s deputy who spoke to the paper said.
Eventually, the gunman would enter the school and open fire, killing 19 children and two adults before being killed by law enforcement.
The latest revelation from the Times shows yet another decision in the police response to the shooting that could have affected the events that day.
Police have been criticized for their response to the Uvalde shooting after taking more than an hour to engage the shooter.
Uvalde officers arrived at the scene of Robb Elementary quickly but waited outside adjoining classrooms in which Ramos had locked himself with students who were still alive.
Following the shooting, Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety Steven McCraw said that the officer in command on the scene believed that the situation had shifted from an active shooter situation to a barricade situation and children were no longer in danger.
The response of law enforcement to the shooting is currently under multiple investigations, including by the Department of Justice, the Texas Rangers and a special committee of the Texas legislature.
Police were first criticized when videos surfaced of parents pleading with officers to confront the shooter inside the school as well as some being forcibly stopped by officers as they attempted to rush into the school to save their children.
Ramos was allegedly in possession of two AR-15s, one of which he had acquired on his 18th birthday.
A group of bipartisan lawmakers in the U.S. Senate has been in negotiations to strike a deal on legislation that would seek to curb gun violence following the shooting in Uvalde and another mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y.