SO THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM OF THE LAST FEW YEARS, THAT POLICE ARE TOO AGGRESSIVE, NEEDS ADJUSTING: Uvalde Shooter Fired Outside School for 12 Minutes Before Entering: Local residents express anger and frustration as police detail new timeline of mass shooting.

Local residents voiced anger Thursday about the time it took to end the mass shooting at an elementary school here, as police laid out a fresh timeline that showed the gunman entered the building unobstructed after lingering outside for 12 minutes firing shots.

Victor Escalon, a regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, gave a new timeline of how the now-deceased gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, walked into Robb Elementary School, barricaded himself in a classroom and killed 19 children and two teachers.

Mr. Escalon said he couldn’t say why no one stopped Ramos from entering the school during that time Tuesday. Most of the shots Ramos fired came during the first several minutes after he entered the school, Mr. Escalon said.

People who arrived at the school while Ramos locked himself in a classroom, or saw videos of police waiting outside, were furious.

“The police were doing nothing,” said Angeli Rose Gomez, who after learning about the shooting drove 40 miles to Robb Elementary, where her children are in second and third grade. “They were just standing outside the fence. They weren’t going in there or running anywhere.”

Mr. Escalon said officers inside the school were evacuating students and school employees from the premises, as well as calling for backup. “There’s a lot going on,” he said.

Department of Public Safety officials previously said an armed school officer confronted Ramos as he arrived at the school. Mr. Escalon said Thursday that information was incorrect and no one encountered Ramos as he arrived at the school. “There was not an officer readily available and armed,” Mr. Escalon said.

Ramos shot his grandmother Tuesday morning and drove her truck to Robb Elementary School, crashing the vehicle into a nearby ditch at 11:28 a.m., according to the timeline laid out by Mr. Escalon. He then began shooting at people at a funeral home across the street, prompting a 911 call reporting a gunman at the school at 11:30. Ramos climbed a chain-link fence about 8 feet high onto school grounds and began firing before walking inside, unimpeded, at 11:40. The first police arrived on the scene at 11:44 and exchanged gunfire with Ramos, who locked himself in a fourth-grade classroom. There, he killed the students and teachers. . . .

Ms. Gomez described the scene as frantic. She said she saw a father tackled and thrown to the ground by police and a third pepper-sprayed. Once freed from her cuffs, Ms. Gomez made her distance from the crowd, jumped the school fence, and ran inside to grab her two children. She sprinted out of the school with them.

Videos circulated on social media Wednesday and Thursday of frantic family members trying to get access to Robb Elementary as the attack was unfolding, some of them yelling at police who blocked them from entering.

“Shoot him or something!” a woman’s voice can be heard yelling on a video, before a man is heard saying about the officers, “They’re all just [expletive] parked outside, dude. They need to go in there.”

The videos were collected by Storyful, a social-media research company owned by News Corp, parent company of The Wall Street Journal.

Bob Estrada lives directly across the street from the school, which his grandson attends. The 77-year-old said he and his wife walked outside when they heard gunshots and were confused why the police who arrived didn’t immediately enter.

“They are trying to cover something up,” he said of the information released Thursday. “I think the cops were waiting for backup because they didn’t want to go into the school.”

The Uvalde Police Department couldn’t be reached for comment.

This is why you should own a gun. And, frankly, why “failure to protect” on the part of police should be legally actionable.

Plus: “President Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Uvalde on Sunday to grieve with the community, the White House said.”

UPDATE: Texting with a former research assistant, I wrote:

I’m thinking of writing an article calling for a new tort, “failure to protect,” when those charged with public safety fail to reasonably do their jobs. Current case law says there’s no right to police protection, but that’s just case law. I’d hold cops and the municipalities that employ them jointly and severally liable for reckless or willful failure to protect. With treble damages when they stop others from doing so.

It seems fair.