Texas police's response to the Uvalde school shooting was an 'abject failure,' a top law-enforcement official testified

• A top Texas law-enforcement official slammed the police response to the Uvalde school shooting.
• The Department of Public Safety's Steve McCraw told lawmakers Tuesday it was an "abject failure."

A top Texas law-enforcement official slammed the police response to last month's deadly school shooting at an Uvalde elementary school as an "abject failure."

"There is compelling evidence that the law-enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary was an abject failure and antithetical to everything we've learned over the last two decades since the Columbine massacre," Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, testified to state lawmakers on Tuesday.

McCraw said three minutes after the 18-year-old gunman entered the school, there was a "sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate, distract, and neutralize the subject."

"The officers had weapons; the children had none. The officers had body armor; the children had none. The officers had training; the subject had none," McCraw said.

McCraw added: "Obviously, not enough training was done in this situation, plain and simple, because of terrible decisions."

"Terrible decisions were made by the on-scene commander and should have never happened, plain and simple."

McCraw was called to testify before a Texas Senate committee investigating the May 24 massacre in Uvalde, which left 19 children and two adults dead.

The school district's embattled police chief, Pete Arredondo, the on-scene commander whom McCraw referred to, was scheduled to speak behind closed doors on Tuesday to Texas House lawmakers.

Police have faced intense criticism for failing to quickly confront the shooter at Robb Elementary School — as well as for the multiple times law-enforcement officials have changed the narrative of how the shooting unfolded and their refusal to turn over documents about the attack.