WWALDE, Texas, May 26 (Reuters) – A gunman in a Texas school massacre stormed an unlocked door, killing 19 children and two teachers while hiding in his classroom for an hour before a tactical team stormed in. to kill him, police said Thursday.
The latest official details from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) on Tuesday’s mass shooting differed sharply from initial police bills and raised questions about primary school security measures and law enforcement response.
The school district in Uwalde, Texas, about 80 miles (130 km) west of San Antonio, has a permanent policy of locking all entrances, including classroom doors, as a precaution. But one student told Reuters that some doors were left unlocked on the day of the shooting so parents’ guests could come and go for the awards day event.
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The new detailed timeline came hours after videos surfaced showing desperate parents outside Rob’s primary school during the attack. They called on officers to storm the building and some fathers had to be detained.
The death toll, which has been the deadliest school shooting in the United States for nearly a decade, has been exacerbated by the news that the husband of one of the murdered teachers died of a heart attack on Thursday as he prepared for his wife’s funeral. . Read more
At a briefing for reporters, MRF spokesman Victor Escalon said the shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, had made his way unhindered to the school grounds after crashing his pickup truck nearby. The massacre began 12 minutes later.
Preliminary police reports said Ramos, who was driving to school from his home after shooting and wounding his grandmother there, was confronted by a school police officer as he ran to the school. Instead, an armed officer was not present when Ramos arrived at the school, Escalon said.
The suspect crashed his pickup truck nearby at 11:28 a.m. (4:28 p.m. GMT), opened fire on two people in a funeral home across the street, then climbed a fence on the school property and entered one of the buildings through an unlocked back door at 11:40 a.m. in the morning (16:40 GMT), said Escalon.
Two officials entered the school four minutes later, but went into hiding after Ramos fired several shots at them, Escalon said.
The shooter then barricaded himself in the fourth-grade classroom of his victims, mostly 9- and 10-year-olds, an hour before a U.S. border patrol tactical team broke into the room and shot him dead, Escalon said. Officers said they heard at least 25 shots coming from the classroom at the beginning of the siege, he said. Read more
“DIFFICULT QUESTION”
The one-hour interval before the invasion of border agents seems to contradict the approach taken by many law enforcement agencies to immediately oppose “active shooters” in schools to stop the bloodshed.
Asked if police should have entered en masse earlier, Escalon said: “This is a difficult question,” adding that authorities would offer more information while the investigation continues.
He described a chaotic scene after the initial exchange of shootings, with officers calling for reinforcements and evacuations of students and staff.
Crosses with the names of victims of school shootings are depicted in a memorial in front of Rob Elementary School after a gunman killed nineteen children and two teachers in Uwalde, Texas, USA, May 26, 2022. REUTERS / Marco Bello
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A video posted on Facebook by a man named Angel Ledezma shows parents breaking a yellow police tape and shouting at employees to enter the building.
“It’s been an hour and they still can’t get all the kids out,” Ledesma said in the video. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Another video posted on YouTube shows police detaining at least one adult. One can hear a woman say, “Why do we let children die? There is a shooting there. “
“We have boys coming in to pick up children,” a police officer was heard saying to the crowd. – They work.
“AWARDS DAY”
Investigators are still looking for a motive, Escalon said. Ramos, who dropped out of high school, had no criminal record or history of mental illness. Minutes before the attack, however, he wrote an online message saying he was on the verge of “shooting down a primary school”, according to Governor Greg Abbott.
The shooter’s father, also named Salvador Ramos, 42, expressed remorse for his son’s actions in an interview published Thursday by The Daily Beast.
I just want people to know I’m sorry, man, [for] what my son did, “he was quoted as saying.” He should have just killed me, you know, instead of doing something like someone. “
In one of the most chilling stories of the shooting, a fourth-grade boy who was in the classroom told local television KENS5 that the shooter announced his presence when he entered, squatting slightly and saying, “It’s time to die.”
Why a back door of the school building will be left unsafe remains under investigation, Escalon said.
Miguel Serillo, 35, and his 8-year-old daughter, Elena, a third-grader at Robb, said the door the shooter used was usually locked.
“But that day they were not locked up because it was prize day and some parents came in through those doors,” said Elena, who was at the school during the shooting. “The parking lot was really full in front, so people parked in the back and used that door.”
At least 17 people, including children, were also injured in the massacre.
The attack, which came 10 days after 10 people were killed by an 18-year-old gunman at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, sparked a national debate over firearms. US President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats have vowed to push for new gun restrictions, despite Republican opposition. Read more
Biden is due to travel to Uwalde on Sunday.
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Report by Gabriela Bortter and Brad Brooks in Uwalde, Texas; additional reports from Brendan O’Brien in Chicago, Doina Chiaku in Washington, Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico and Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; writing by Joseph Ax and Steve Gorman; edited by Cynthia Osterman and Stephen Coates
Our standards: Thomson Reuters’ principles of trust.
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