By Zachary Stieber
Contributing Writer
Newly released body camera footage shows Texas law enforcement officers spending more than an hour outside an elementary school classroom after a man with a gun entered and fired shots.
Officers spent crucial time discussing ways to enter the classroom at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde before eventually breaching the classroom door and shooting the man.
The situation unfolded in the morning of May 24, 2022.
The man, later identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, went into the school at 11:33 a.m. that day and began shooting. He soon entered a classroom connected to another classroom.
Law enforcement officers gathered outside the room and discussed saving the children inside, such as breaking open a window. “We’re going to get these kids out,” one officer says at 12:23 p.m. But officers opted to wait for a key or a breaching tool, the video shows, even after they heard more shots being fired in the room.
The officers ultimately entered the room around 12:47 p.m., according to a U.S. Department Justice report released in January.
Nineteen students and two teachers were fatally shot by Ramos, who was slain by officers.
Seventeen other people were left wounded.
The shooting was one of the worst school shootings in the history of the United States.
The DOJ said the law enforcement response to the shooting was a failure that involved a series of errors, leaving 33 students and three teachers trapped in the classroom with the shooter for more than an hour.
The bodycam footage and other records were released pursuant to a court order.
“In the interest of serving taxpayers, the Uvalde community, and ensuring compliance with [the law], the city is fulfilling its responsibility to provide responsive records, which have been appropriately redacted in accordance with Texas law pursuant to the court’s order, to conclude this lawsuit,” Uvalde officials said in a statement. “The city is exercising careful diligence to protect privacy rights and to comply with the court’s order.”
911 Calls
Calls to 911 were also released, including calls from Khloie Torres, one of the fourth-graders who was in the classroom with Ramos.
“Please, I don’t want to die. My teacher is dead. Oh, my God,” Khloie said.
At one point, the dispatcher asks Khloie if there are many people in the room with the 10-year-old, who ultimately survived.
“No, it’s just me and a couple of friends. A lot of people are,” she says, pausing briefly, “gone.”
Other calls came from terrified teachers, including one who urged law enforcement to “hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!” That teacher says they heard “a lot, a whole lot of gunshots,” while another sobbed into the phone as a dispatcher urged her to stay quiet.
Jesse Rizo, whose 9-year-old niece Jacklyn Cazares was killed in the shooting, said the release of information reignited festering anger because it shows “the waiting and waiting and waiting” of law enforcement.
“Perhaps if they were to have breached earlier, they would have saved some lives, including my niece’s,” he said.
Two of the responding officers now face criminal charges. Former Uvalde school Police Chief Pete Arredondo and former school officer Adrian Gonzales have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of child abandonment and endangerment. A Texas state trooper in Uvalde who had been suspended was reinstated to his job earlier this month.
Some of the families have called for more officers to be charged and filed federal and state lawsuits against law enforcement, social media, online gaming companies, and the gun manufacturer that made the rifle the gunman used.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
