• An official sparked fury when he suggested work on the Texas shooting kept him away from his kids.
  • "I'm a father. I can't go home tonight and hug my kids. That hurts," Victor Escalon said Thursday.
  • Angry social media users called out the law enforcement official for being insensitive.

A top Texas law enforcement official sparked outrage when he suggested that investigation work on the Uvalde school shooting kept him away from his children. 

"I'm a father. I can't go home tonight and hug my kids. That hurts," Victor Escalon, the South Texas regional director for the state Department of Public Safety, said during a press conference on Thursday.

Pointing to his colleagues standing behind him, he added: "The members behind me — our family members. Their kids. It's tough. It's hard. But that gives us the motivation to move on to do good work for Uvalde, Texas." 

Escalon made the remarks while providing updates on Tuesday's mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, which has left at least 19 students and two adults dead.

His comments sparked fury on social media, with people calling him out for being insensitive. 

"We can't hug our kids tonight because we're investigating the mass murder we didn't try to stop, sort of like those parents whose kids were murdered, is next-level chutzpah," Jeremy Stahl, a senior editor at Slate magazine, said in a tweet. 

"Not being able to go home and hug your kids is not the same as not being able to EVER hug your kid again. They really don't care," one person tweeted. 

 

"He can't hug his kids because of work. 19 families can't hug their kids because they were shot to pieces and murdered. Yeah, same thing," another person said.

 

The Texas Department of Safety did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The Robb Elementary School shooting is the deadliest elementary school mass shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012. 

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