Texas lawmakers and the public want to know what went wrong in Uvalde, Texas last month, at the deadly school shooting.

A Texas Senate panel held a hearing on Tuesday morning.

Texas Department of Public Safety Director, Steven McCraw, testified regarding his office’s investigation into the police’s response to the shooting. 

In his opening statement, McCraw said his department uncovered “compelling evidence” that suggests that the police response at the school “was an abject failure.”

McCraw said that communication failures hampered the police response at Robb Elementary School. He explained that School District Police Chief, Pete Arredondo, the commander on the scene, arrived at the school without a radio, and that local police and Border Patrol officers lost radio communication signals inside the school, and had to resort to cell phone communication with dispatchers.

McCraw said there were other major mistakes made, causing confusion for people inside the school. Although the principal used the emergency alert system, it did not inform everyone inside the school about the shooter on site.

McCraw presented a timeline of events from the Uvalde shooting and read aloud from a transcript of police radio communications. The transcript reads that the police chief and other officers discussed and debated about what to do about the activity inside the classroom. Nearly an hour after the shooter entered the school, one officer told Arredondo, “People are going to ask why we’re taking so long.”

“We’re trying to preserve life,” Arredondo replied, according to the transcript.

McCraw emphasized that there were enough officers and equipment on the scene immediately after the shooter entered the school, and they could have “neutralized” him.

He said that Police Chief Pete Arredondo was the “only thing stopping” officers from entering the classroom.

Arredondo, McCraw said, “decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children.”

“The officers had weapons – the children had none. The officers had body armor – the children had none,” he said.

Pete Arredondo testified in separate hearings held by the Texas House of Representatives.

The parents of victims and other community members called for Arredondo’s resignation at an emotional meeting of the Uvalde, Texas school board Monday night.