day. the district police chief made the decision to hold officers back from the robb elementary classroom. the shooter locked himself inside. now we know those officers waited for nearly 80 minutes. it was a terrifying nearly hour and a half for the entire school. here is what one teacher told her students to do when she heard the gunfire. she spoke with our ore morgan chesky. i just kept hearing boom, boom, boom. it kept going off for what felt like an eternity. reporter: as the gunman walked towards her school, nicole shouted for her kids to hit the floor seconds before glass shattered her classroom. i had one student laying on top of me, and i had a bunch of other students right over here by me. i just remember praying, please, god, please, god, keep us safe. reporter: she and her students managed to get to safety. when she learned as many as 19 officers waited 47 minutes before engaging the gunman, she said this where do you believe blame should lie? on the pe
that s correct, this is a memorial near the town square in uvalde, where people have gathered around a fountain. and as you can see, they have laid out candles and balloons and messages to those that were lost in last week s tragic shooting and to their families as well. we actually moved away from the elementary school in part because the president is visiting uvalde, today, and preparations are under way right now for his arrival. that s where we begin this morning. the president once again taking on the role of consoler in chief. in a few hours, president biden is set to visit this area and the memorial that has been set up at robb elementary school. the scene of only the latest mass shooting in the united states. president biden is scheduled to attend church here, and meet with family members of those who were killed. the president meeting with 21 families, 21 people killed, 2 teachers, 19 students, most of them third and fourth graders. 21 families forever marked when
texas. they will make a visitor robb elementary school, paying the respects of course to the elementary school, the memorial has been built up around that school there. they ll then move on to sacred heart. and a ten mass for an hour long service there. paying their respects to the community. and then it is the task that a president takes on every single time a mass shooting like this happens. and it is visiting with the victims and the victims families. paying their respects. this president knows all too well what it was like to lose a child as he did so many years ago. and quite recently as well. and i m sure he ll lend what he has learned in that moment to these families. but nothing can provide solace in the comfort that these families need right now. because all they want to survey these back in their arms. that s nothing this president could ever provide for them. he ll also be meeting with first responders as well. we re going to be tracking the location of the preside
yes, i was misled. tonight, what we know about the police failure, and the policy failure that allowed mass murder in a texas school. plus, pandering and a protest at the air on a convention in houston, and with you and i can do to break this uniquely american ritual of violence. all in starts right now. good evening from new york. i m chris hayes. today, wayne lapierre, head of the national rifle association, hosted a number of republican politicians, including the ex president, at his organization s annual conference in houston. just days after 19 elementary school children and teachers were slaughtered by a gunman, a few hundred miles away. now, all of the speakers at today s conference acknowledged the shooting, and really, how could they not? and all of them blamed it on everything but the ar-15 style rifle that the gunman bought as soon as he was legally able to when he turned 18. this is standard. i mean, this is the script. we know how this goes. for nra and