Jim Vertuno and Elliott Spagat, Associated Press, Posted Friday, May 27, 2022, 4:37 PM EDT Last Updated on Friday, May 27, 2022, 11:11 PM EDT
WWALDE, Texas (AP) – Students trapped in a classroom with a gunman repeatedly called 911 during a Texas elementary school attack this week, including one that begged, “Please send police now.” as employees waited more than an hour to break into the classroom after the shooter followed into the building, authorities said Friday.
The commander of the Uwalde scene – the school district police chief – believes 18-year-old shooter Salvador Ramos has been barricaded in adjacent classrooms at Rob Elementary School and that children are no longer at risk, Stephen McCrow, head of the Texas Department of Justice. public safety told a contested press conference.
“It was the wrong decision,” he said.
Friday’s briefing came after authorities spent three days providing often conflicting and incomplete information for more than an hour between Ramos entering the school and U.S. Border Patrol agents unlocking a classroom door and killing him.
Three police officers followed Ramos into the building within two minutes. Over the next half hour, as many as 19 police officers gathered in the corridor outside. But it was another 47 minutes before the Border Patrol’s tactical team broke through the door, McCrow said.
As the attacker shot at students, law enforcement officials from other agencies called on the school police chief to let them move because the children were in danger, two law enforcement officials said.
Officials said on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.
One of the officers said that the audio recordings from the scene were recorded by employees from other agencies, who told the school police chief that the shooter was still active and that the priority was to stop him.
Ramos killed 19 children and two teachers in the room. His motive remains unclear, authorities said.
Shortly after Ramos entered the classroom, where officers eventually killed him, there was gunfire, but the shots were “sporadic” most of the time police waited in the hallway, McCrow said. He said investigators did not know if children had died during that time.
During the attack, teachers and children repeatedly called 911 for help, including the girl who was begging for police, McCrow said.
Young survivors of the attack said they pretended to be dead while waiting for help.
11-year-old Mia Serilo told CNN she covered herself in a friend’s blood to look dead. Once the shooter moved to an adjoining room, she could hear screams, more gunfire, and music. Samuel Salinas, 10, who also played dead, told ABC’s Good Morning America that the attacker shot and killed teacher Irma Garcia before shooting the children.
Questions have grown about the time it takes for police officers to enter the school to confront an armed man.
It was 11:28 a.m. Tuesday when Ramos’ Ford pickup truck crashed into a ditch behind a Texas low school and the driver jumped out carrying an AR-15-style rifle. Five minutes later, authorities said, Ramos entered the school and found his way to a fourth-grade classroom, killing 21 victims.
But it wasn’t until around 12:50 a.m. that police killed Ramos, McCrow said, when shots were heard calling 911 from a man in the classroom as officers stormed the room.
What happened during that time, in a working-class neighborhood near the end of Uwalde, fueled growing public anger and control of law enforcement response to the riot on Tuesday.
“They say they rushed,” said Javier Casares, whose fourth-grader daughter, Jacqueline Casares, was killed in the attack and rushed to the school as the massacre took place. “We didn’t see that.”
According to a new schedule provided by McCrow, after crashing his truck, Ramos shot two people coming out of a nearby funeral home, officials said.
Contrary to earlier statements by officials, a police officer from the school district was not at the school when Ramos arrived. When the officer responded, he unconsciously passed Ramos, who was crouching behind a car parked outside and shooting at the building, McCrow said.
At 11:33 a.m., Ramos entered the school through a back door that was open and fired more than 100 rounds into a pair of classrooms, McCrow said. He did not answer why the door was open.
Two minutes later, three local police officers arrived and entered the building through the same door, followed shortly after by four others, McCrow said. Within 15 minutes, officials from various agencies gathered in the hallway, sporadically firing from Ramos, who was hidden in a classroom.
Ramos was still inside at 12:10 a.m. when the first deputies of the U.S. Marshals Service arrived. They rushed to the school from nearly 70 miles (113 kilometers) in the border town of Del Rio, the agency said in a tweet on Friday.
But the building’s commander, school district police chief Pete Aredondo, decided the group had to wait to face the shooter, convinced the scene was no longer an active attack, McCrow said.
The crisis ended at 12:50 a.m. after officers used concierge keys to open the classroom door, entered the room and shot Ramos dead, he said.
Arredondo could not be found for comment on Friday. No one opened the door to his home, and he did not respond to a phone call left at the district police station.
Governor Greg Abbott, who praised police response at a news conference Wednesday, said Friday he had been “misled” and “enraged”.
In his previous statements, the governor told reporters, he repeated what he said. “The information provided to me turned out to be partly inaccurate,” he said.
Abbott said exactly what had happened should be “thoroughly, thoroughly” investigated.
Earlier, the governor praised law enforcement for their “amazing courage in running” and their “quick response.”
On Friday, Abbott was due to attend the annual convention of the National Weapons Association, which is being held throughout Houston. Instead, he addressed the congress of the human rights group through a recorded video and went to Uwalde.
At the congress, a speaker after a speaker came on stage to say that changing US gun laws or further restricting access to firearms was not the answer.
“What stops armed bad boys is armed good boys,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told Houston.
Former President Donald Trump was among Republican leaders who spoke at the event, where hundreds of protesters outraged by gun violence demonstrated from the outside, including some holding crosses with photos of Uwalde’s victims.
The motive for the massacre – the deadliest school shooting in the country of Newtown, Connecticut, nearly a decade ago – remains under investigation. Authorities said Ramos had no known criminal or mental history.
During the siege, frustrated onlookers called on police to raid the school, according to witnesses.
“Get in there!” Get in there! ” the women shouted at police shortly after the attack began, said 24-year-old Juan Caranza, who was watching the scene from the front house across the street.
Casares said that when he arrived, he saw two employees in front of the school and about five others escorting students from the building. But it was 15 or 20 minutes before officers arrived with shields equipped to face weapons, he said.
As more and more parents flocked to the school, he and others pressured police to act, Casares said. He heard about four shots before he and the others were ordered to return to the parking lot.
“Many of us argued with the police: ‘You all have to go in there. You all have to do your job. Their response was, “We can’t do our job because you’re interfering,” Casares said.
The many chilling details of the attack were enough to make the parents fight the fear.
Visiting a memorial in downtown, Cassandra Johnson of the nearby Hondo community said she was so worried the day after the attack that she kept her twin boys at home from school.
Before sending the 8-year-olds back, she studied the school building, deciding which windows she would have to break to reach them. And she painted hearts on their hands with a marker so she could identify them if the worst happened, Johnson said as he placed flowers near 21 white crosses in honor of the victims.
“These children may be my children,” she said.
Associated Press reporters Claire Galofaro of Uwalde, Jake Bleiberg of Dallas and Mike Balsamo of Washington contributed to the report.
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