At Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, a shooter fatally shot 19 students and two instructors in two adjacent classrooms. Officers pursued the 18-year-old shooter into the school for over an hour before killing him inside the fourth-grade classroom where he was holed up.
Meanwhile, parents outside the school pleaded with authorities to enter while captive youngsters called 911 repeatedly.
Why the cops, who were armed with weapons and shields to protect them from bullets, waited for so long is still under debate. Authorities have provided inconsistent and occasionally contradictory information regarding what occurred and their actions.
Many residents of the small South Texas city are upset as a result of the aftermath, which has caused blame games and divisions between local and state authorities.
On July 17, a damning report from a Texas House of Representatives investigation committee and hours of body camera footage from police officers were made public, further exposing the disorganized response that involved 376 policemen. The findings were the first to criticize not only local authorities but also state and federal law enforcement for the absurdly inert behavior of the heavily armed officers.
Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, blamed school district police chief Pete Arredondo for making the "poor decision" not to send cops in sooner during a news conference on May 27.
On June 21, McCraw provided a detailed timeline while testifying before the state Senate, describing law enforcement's response as a "abject failure." He said that three minutes after the shooter, Salvador Ramos, entered the school, there were enough police and armed forces present to put an end to him. McCraw further pointed out that if they had checked, the cops would have discovered the classroom unlocked rather than wasting time looking for a key.
Only two responding officers—Arredondo and Lt. Mariano Pargas, a member of the Uvalde Police Department who served as the city's acting police chief during the massacre—have so far been known to have been placed on administrative leave pending an inquiry into their conduct.
According to the state House report, Arredondo should have taken command at the scene in accordance with the school district's active shooter policy, but Arredondo told the committee he didn't see himself in that position.
Despite "clear weaknesses in command and control at the site," the investigation stated that no law enforcement personnel provided Arredondo command support.
A minute-by-minute breakdown of the tragic events that day can be seen below.
Ramos shoots his grandmother in the face after 11 o'clock. The gunfire was heard by 82-year-old Gilbert Gallegos, who was in his backyard across the street from Ramos and his grandmother's house. He witnesses Ramos leave in a pickup truck while Ramos' grandma cries out for assistance. She replies, bloodied, "Berto, this is what he did. Gallegos, whose wife phones the police, claims, "He shot me.
11:21 a.m. — According to McCraw, who testified at the state Senate hearing on June 21, Ramos told a teenager in Germany through text message that he had just shot his grandma and was on his way to "shoot up" an elementary school.
On May 27, according to McCraw, a teacher is seen on video propped open the school's exterior door at 11:27 a.m. The teacher has not been publicly identified by the authorities.
State police claim in a chronology made public on June 21 that Ramos crashed the pickup at 11:28 am into a drainage ditch close to the school based on video taken from a funeral home across the street.
Two men at the funeral home emerge to investigate the incident at 11:29 a.m. They witness Ramos leap from the car's passenger side while toting an AR-15-style gun and a bag of ammo. Ramos attempts three shots at the males but fails, according to McCraw on June 21. According to McCraw on May 27, one of the guys stumbles, but they both manage to return to the funeral home.
According to state police's timeline from June 21, which is based on phone recordings, the instructor dials 911 and claims seeing a man carrying a gun. The instructor had run back inside to get her phone to call 911 after propping up the door, according to DPS spokesman Travis Considine, but when she emerged, she saw Ramos had a gun. Considine claims that once she took out the rock holding the door open, it closed behind her but did not lock.
The state House investigation claims that shortly after the collision, Robb Elementary coach Yvette Silva, who was outside with some third graders, observed Ramos throw his backpack over a school fence, jump over, raise a revolver, and start shooting. She uses a school radio to report what she had witnessed to the office as she runs from the field toward her classroom.
According to the complaint, Principal Mandy Gutierrez tries to start lockdown using the school's alarm program but encounters issues with the Wi-Fi connectivity. She instructed the head custodian to make sure all doors were locked but did not declare a lockdown over the intercom. The custodian began closing doors from outside, according to the report, but stopped when he heard gunfire and walked inside the cafeteria, where he stayed.
According to the state House committee, teachers begin to lock down at about 11:30 a.m. based primarily on word-of-mouth reports about the shooter. Teachers reported hearing Silva yelling and gunshots to the committee. A teacher in room 105 claims that at 11:32 a.m., the school issued a lockdown alarm.
The funeral home video shows that at 11:31 a.m. Ramos fires at the school as a patrol car speeds by Ramos and into the parking lot. Contrary to earlier accounts, the on-duty Uvalde school district police officer wasn't on campus, according to McCraw on May 27. After hearing about the incident, the officer arrives at the school and approaches the person he believes to be the shooter near the back of the building. According to McCraw, the officer "drove right by the suspect who was hunched down behind" a car as he hurried toward the man, who turned out to be a teacher.
Ramos opened fire outside the school at 11:32 in the morning, according to state police on June 21 who cited school surveillance. She may be heard yelling, "Get down!" in the audio of the teacher's 911 call that the Austin American-Statesman has received. Go to your rooms now! Enter your rooms now!
Another officer, who was not identified, told the state House committee that he believed the shooter was firing in their direction. When he saw a person dressed in black that he thought was the gunman, he raised his rifle and asked Coronado for permission to shoot. Coronado said he heard the request but hesitated because there were children present.
The officer who made the request said there was no opportunity for Coronado to respond before they heard on the radio that the attacker was running toward the school. The officers told the committee that it turned out the person in black wasn’t the attacker, but elementary school coach Abraham Gonzales, who was headed to the parking lot for his lunch break.
The committee said this contradicts a report released July 6 by a training center at Texas State University for active shooter situations, which said that a city officer had watched Ramos walk toward campus but didn’t fire while waiting for permission from a supervisor to shoot. On July 8, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin disputed the training center report, saying no city police officer saw the gunman outside the school and none had an opportunity to shoot him.
He said that while an officer did see someone outside, the officer could not tell who it was.
11:33 a.m. — Ramos enters the school through the unlocked door on the school’s west side and begins shooting into adjoining fourth-grade classrooms 111 and 112, school surveillance footage shows. Ramos then enters, exits and re-enters classrooms 111 and 112. The state House report says Ramos spent about two and a half minutes rapidly firing over 100 rounds between the two rooms. The report says it is most likely Ramos entered through the door to room 111, finding it unlocked or unsecured.
The report says there’s evidence that one of the two teachers in room 112, Irma Garcia, who died in the attack, did lock her door. The report says there’s substantial evidence that the door to room 111 didn’t secure properly. The report says the teacher in room 111, Arnulfo Reyes, who was shot but survived, told the House committee he had no recollection of getting a lockdown alert or any memory that he took the “special effort” needed to get his door to lock before the attacker arrived.
The state House report says problems with the room 111 door lock had been reported to the school administration, but no one placed a work order for a repair.
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