Uvalde County leaders release video, records showing response to deadly school shooting
AUSTIN, Texas — County leaders in Uvalde, Texas, released police body camera video and documents Tuesday detailing the agonizingly slow law enforcement response during one of the deadliest classroom attacks in U.S. history that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
Authorities were roundly criticized for failing to confront 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos for more than an hour after the May 2022 shooting began at Robb Elementary School.
Several bodycam videos show officers from multiple departments inside the school hallway and standing outside. Officers milling about suggest throwing gas in the window or searching for a key to the locked classroom, but it’s unclear any of those suggestions are taken or who is in charge.
Within minutes, parents making their way to a fence near the school and yell at officers them to do something.
“Who’s class is he in?” one parent can be heard yelling. Another yells: “Come on man, my daughter is in there.” Another parent not seen on the video angrily says, “Either you go in or I’m going in bro,” adding a few seconds later, “My kids are in there, bro … please.”
The records released Tuesday are the final batch of documents that local authorities withheld during a yearslong legal battle over public access. Family members of the victims were among those pushing for the the records to be released.
In one video, an officer involved in the initial response can be heard saying, “We can’t see him at all” before adding, “We were at the front and he started shooting.”
The officer wearing the body cam asks: “He’s in a classroom right?” Another officer responds: “With kids.”
Three months before the shooting, sheriff’s deputies went to the gunman’s home on consecutive nights because he was arguing with his mother over Wi-Fi and broken video game equipment after she turned off the internet, records show.
Adriana Reyes said her son never hit her but told deputies “she was scared of Salvador and wanted help,” a report said. Ramos’ grandmother picked him up one night, and deputies drove him there the next night.
Media organizations, including The Associated Press, sued the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and Uvalde County in 2022 for the release of their records. A Texas appeals court in July upheld a lower court’s ruling that the records must be made public.
Last year, city officials in Uvalde released body camera footage and recordings of 911 calls.
Documents released by the school district on Monday detailed the gunman’s downward spiral beginning in middle school, including his dropping out of school just months before the massacre.
Nearly 400 officers waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the gunman in a classroom filled with dead and wounded children and teachers. Federal and state investigations later looked into law enforcement training, communication, leadership and technology, and questioned whether officers prioritized their own lives over those of children and teachers.
Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo and Adrian Gonzales, another former school district officer, are the only two officers who face criminal charges for their actions that day. They both have pleaded not guilty to child endangerment and abandonment and are scheduled for trial later this year.
Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press reporters Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri; Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia; and Ed White in Detroit contributed.