On-scene video that was exclusively obtained by Austin American-Statesman and KVUE shows mass confusion inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, as well as the chaotic first moments as the massacre there, began to unfold.
An 18-year-old male shooter killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School and the video clearly features sights and sounds from that tragic day.
The footage shows the killer crashing his vehicle before getting out and taking shots at people approaching his vehicle, and then directly at the school.
Next, a female teacher is then heard yelling, “The kids are running! Oh my God … Get down! Get in your room! Get in your rooms!”
In addition, the video includes audio of when shots are first fired at the school from outside the building.
From there, the killer is seen entering the school at 11:33 a.m. At one point, a young student comes around a hallway and sees the shooter but the shooter does not see the student.
Caption on the video tells viewers that the shooter then opened fire inside two classrooms for two and a half minutes, firing more than 100 rounds. That particular footage, however, has been removed from the video, as well as screams from the children. The shots are not eliminated from the soundtrack, however.
Then, at 11:36 a.m., just three minutes later, officers are seen inside the school. At least three of the officers rush toward the classrooms while several others hang back. But after they heard shots, the officers retreat to another hallway, the video appears to show.
More officers arrive, but at 12:09 p.m., not a single rescue attempt has been made, the video says in a caption.
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Steve McCraw, director of Texas Department of Public Safety, has confirmed that nine officers were inside the building within three minutes of the attack. He has also been extremely critical of the officers’ actions as well as those of the on-scene commander who reportedly issued orders for police to wait.
“There’s compelling evidence that the law enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary was an abject failure and antithetical to everything we’ve learned over the last two decades since the Columbine massacre,” he said last month during testimony before a state Senate committee last month.
“Three minutes after the subject entered the West building, there was sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate, distract, and neutralize the subject,” McCraw continued.
“The only thing stopping the hallway of dedicated officers from entering room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” he continued.
“One error; 14 minutes and eight seconds,” the director said of the young students waiting in a classroom for police to save them. At one point, he said, officers were waiting for a “key that was not needed.”
“I have great reasons to believe it was never secured,” he testified. “How about trying the door and seeing if it’s locked?”
“Obviously, not enough training was done in this situation, plain and simple. Because terrible decisions were made by the on-site commander,” McCraw criticized.
Parents and other critics have also blasted police who were first on the scene for refusing to more quickly engage the shooter. One mother has claimed that she was briefly handcuffed for trying to get past officers to get into the school to get her two sons, though other officers who were on the scene have disputed her account.
“The police were doing nothing,” mother Angeli Rose Gomez accused, according to The Wall Street Journal. “They were just standing outside the fence. They weren’t going in there or running anywhere.”
Gomez said “she was one of numerous parents waiting outside the school who began encouraging— first politely, and then with more urgency — police and other law enforcement to enter the school sooner,” the Journal report outlined.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
