Both doors were locked from the inside. The perp was only in one room the whole time after the killings occurred – we know that from at least one of the survivors. I don’t think the police knew that. But in addition and perhaps more importantly, the perp had easy access to both rooms and both doors to the outside. If the police had started working on the door he wasn’t behind at the moment, he could get there in a few seconds and start shooting.

That’s my interpretation, anyway.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I had read that the classrooms were linked; I think that was based on one of the students’ testimony.

I was just asking because it seemed like a peculiar layout to have a bathroom with no locks on the doors between two classrooms. I agree with your point that they wouldn’t want kids locking themselves in the bathroom. On the other hand, you don’t want people barging in when someone’s using the bathroom, but there could be some device to show it was occupied, or just the old knock-on-the-door system.

And a commenter in another thread said that many schools have odd layouts. I haven’t been in an elementary school for longer than I care to think about.

I don’t have time to find the links now, but just to clarify–

All reports are that the two classrooms were linked. In a couple of places (don’t remember where) I read that the link was a bathroom serving the two classrooms. At the very least, a door.

I do NOT know whether that door was able to be locked. My guess is that it wasn’t, especially if it was to a bathroom that little kids used. But I don’t know. It makes sense that it didn’t have a lock. I can’t think why it would have one, even if it wasn’t a bathroom.

It seems that you are saying that the death classroom was connected to another classroom via a bathroom without door locks, between the two classrooms.

Is this correct? And do you have links to support this?

At Robb Elementary, my guess is that the perp wouldn’t even have had to kick it in, because I have some doubt as to whether that internal door even had a lock on it. Why would it? It was just between adjoining classrooms and I read that it led to a small bathroom to which both classes had access. These were young kids, and I doubt that the school wanted them to have the capacity to lock themselves in that little bathroom. Who would ever foresee that a failure to have a lock on an internal door like that might lead to disaster?

Kate. We have the same kind of doors on our church. When I’m doing security, I push on the doors themselves from the inside but not on the push bars. If they don’t yield outward, they’re locked. Used to be….used to be….we didn’t have to do that and people could come in.
We have one entrance, watched by greeters and ushers.

Though she tried, the teacher who had gone outside didn’t secure the outer school door and that’s how the shooter got into the school. But the shooter got into a different classroom and not that teacher’s classroom. The shooter got into the classroom of the teacher and children he killed because the lockdown had just been announced, and he entered when she had just walked over to the classroom door in order to lock it. He entered right before she managed to do it. But she had never left the classroom, and so she never “returned.” That was a different teacher in a different classroom.

But the shooter did get into a second classroom. That room had probably already been locked from the inside by the teacher there (although that issue hasn’t been addressed). However, the two classrooms were adjoining and had a door between them. I read that they were connected by a joint bathroom and that was the door involved, and the shooter went through that small room to get from one class to another. My guess is that the internal bathroom wasn’t locked or more likely it couldn’t be locked because it wasn’t designed to be locked (you don’t want young kids locking themselves in the bathroom). Tragically, that was the shooter’s conduit from one room to the other. It would be good to hear this issue addressed more explicitly, which may happen in due time.

Yes, we need a lot more information about the key. For example: when did they start looking for it, and why? If there was a delay in even looking for it, what was the reason? How long did it take to find it from that point the started looking? If there was a delay in finding it, why? Did the janitor have the only key? Why? Where was the janitor?

The other issue involves the ballistic shields. When did they come? Was it at that point that they started looking for the key, because they had protection from the shooter? Were they waiting for the children in other classrooms to be evacuated, so that if the shooter escaped through the door the other children (and people outside) would be safe? How long did it take them to use the shields, and why? At that point was it all about finding the key?