These are two words that will cost the public authorities dearly with the prospect of multiple legal proceedings.

The police made a "bad decision" by not quickly entering the Uvalde school where a gunman had taken refuge in a class who massacred 19 children and two teachers, a senior Texan official admitted on Friday.

“Looking back now, of course it wasn't the right decision.

It was the wrong decision, period,” Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a tense press conference.

“If I thought it could help, I would apologize,” he said, very moved.

Reported survivors

Nineteen officers at the scene waited for a Border Police intervention unit, about an hour after the shooter, Salvador Ramos, broke into the building on Tuesday.

The 18-year-old teenager killed 19 children and two teachers.

Pressed by journalists to explain this highly criticized delay in intervention, the official said that the police thought "there may be no more survivors".

The police nevertheless received numerous calls from several people in the two affected classrooms, including one from a child at 12:16 p.m., more than half an hour before the police intervention at 12:50 p.m., warning that " eight to nine students were alive,” the official said.

During one of her first calls, this pupil, who had warned that there were several deaths, asked: “please send the police now”.

"New Sandy Hook"

The shooting, described as "new Sandy Hook" in the American press, in reference to the appalling massacre in a Connecticut elementary school in 2012, has awakened the traumas of America.

The faces of the very young victims, aged 11, 10, 9 and years, broadcast repeatedly on television, and the testimonies of their collapsed relatives have moved the country, relaunching a wave of calls for better regulation of firearms.

This movement is unlikely to translate into action, given the lack of hope of an ambitious national law on the issue being passed by Congress.

NRA Annual Convention

A few hours away, the first American arms lobby, the National Rifle Association, held its annual convention in Houston, rocked by a controversy over the timing of the event, which caused politicians and stars of the country music to cancel their visit.

The NRA promised that this high mass would be an opportunity to “reflect” on what happened in Uvalde – a tragedy for which the organization had cleared itself of all responsibility.

While former President Donald Trump will be in attendance, as will conservative state senator Ted Cruz, Republican Governor Greg Abbott will instead give Uvalde a press conference.

Abbott, a prominent gun rights advocate and running for re-election this year against Democrat Beto O'Rourke, will still speak to members of the NRA in a pre-recorded video, a source said. of his spokespersons at the Dallas Morning News.

His deputy, Dan Patrick, will also not show up to avoid "adding more pain to the families," he said in a statement.

By late morning, thousands of firearms enthusiasts were already strolling through the vast convention center filled with manufacturers' booths, displaying semi-automatic rifles and hunting equipment.

“I have guns in every room of my house,” laughed a man in his 60s when asked if the gun he was considering buying would be his first.

Another notable absentee was the maker of the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle used by the shooter.

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