AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Desperate parents begged law enforcement officers to storm an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in the frantic minutes after a gunman opened fire in one of the deadliest classroom attacks in U.S. history, police body camera video released Tuesday shows.
“Whose class is he in?” one parent can be heard asking. Another comes up and yells, “Come on man, my daughter is in there!”
The heartbreaking videos show the agonizingly slow law enforcement response along with confusion and delays. Authorities failed to confront 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos for more than an hour after the attack at Robb Elementary School began on May 24, 2022. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed.
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.
Several bodycam videos show officers from multiple departments inside the school hallway and standing outside, some suggesting throwing gas in the window or searching for a key to the locked classroom. But it’s unclear who is in charge.
Within minutes, parents making their way to a fence near the school yell at officers to do something.
One parent angrily says, “Either you go in or I’m going in bro,” adding a few seconds later, “My kids are in there, bro. … Please!”
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 bodycam asks: “He’s in a classroom right?” Another officer responds: “With kids.”
Documents released Monday by the school district offer the most detailed look yet at the gunman whose downward spiral began in middle school with a series of suspensions and warnings for harassment and bullying. He dropped out of school just months before the shooting.
Sheriff’s deputies went to the gunman’s home on two consecutive nights just three months before the attack because he was arguing with his mother over Wi-Fi and broken video game equipment after she turned off the internet, county’s records released Tuesday reveal.
Adriana Reyes said her son never hit her but told deputies she was scared of him and needed 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.
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.
At one point during the massacre, officers can be seen tucked in recesses in the hallway as one outside the building says: “They are taking him out. Stand by.”
But the minutes tick past.
“We are waiting,” an officer outside says.
Minutes later, a voice can be heard saying over a loudspeaker: “Please put your firearm down. We don’t want anyone else hurt.”
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.
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The story has been corrected to show deputies went to the gunman’s house on two consecutive nights, not three.
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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.
