UVALDE, Texas (AP) – Surveillance footage of police officers milling body armor in the hallway of Robb Elementary School sparked a new wave of anger on Tuesday in Uvalde, while a gunman carried out a homicide inside a fourth-grade classroom. Diya, which had 19 children. And two teachers died.
Movies published on tuesday American-Statesman by Austin is a disturbing 80-minute recording of what is now known to be one of the deadliest school shootings in American history: heavily armed police officers, some armed with rifles and bulletproof shields, in the hallway. Waited for more than an hour before going in and massaging the May 24 killings.
But the footage, which had not yet been publicly exposed, sparked renewed anguish from Uvalde residents and rekindled calls for accountability and explanation in the small South Texas town, which are incomplete — and ever -Ever Wrong – In the seven weeks since shooting. Hours after the video was published, some residents at the Uvalde city council meeting said they were not able to bring themselves to watch it.
Jesus Rizzo said that officials who are paid taxpayer dollars to protect people “should not sit there” when children are in danger.
“You could have saved some lives. You could have held someone’s hand because they were dying,” he said. “The parents could see them for the last time when they were dying.”
Others demanded results for the police and more information in an investigation marked by confusing statements that have had to be retracted at times.
“Give some closure to these families,” said Daniel Myers, a pastor in Uvalde and a family friend of one of the victims.
People visit a memorial at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Thursday, June 2, 2022, to pay tribute to victims killed in last week’s school shooting. (AP Photo/Je C. Hong)
An investigative committee led by Texas lawmakers earlier Sunday announced plans to show video to Uvalde residents for the first time, in addition to sharing its findings after weeks of closed-door testimony from more than 40 witnesses.
“This is the most unprofessional investigation or handling I have ever seen in my life,” Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said in an interview with the Associated Press. “These families constantly go blind.”
Footage from a hallway camera inside the school shows the gunman entering the building with an AR-15 style rifle and includes 911 tapes of a teacher shouting, “Get down! Go to your rooms! Go to your rooms!”
The two officers approached the classrooms minutes after the gunman entered, then ran back amid the sound of gunfire.
Photos of victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas are shown on a video display during a moment of silence before a baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and Houston on Friday, May 27, 2022 at T-Mobile Park. Astro in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
As the gunman enters the classrooms for the first time, a child whose image is blurred can be seen turning his head down the hallway to a corner and then running back while the shots are played. Later, about 20 minutes before police broke into the room, the video shows a man wearing a vest that says “sheriff” uses a wall-mounted hand sanitizer dispenser.
There is screaming of children throughout the video.
Officials said they are preparing to release 77 minutes of footage later this week, which does not contain pictures of children in the classroom. Rep. Dustin Burroughs, a Republican leading the investigation, said after the statesman posted the video that “it’s important to see the full section of law enforcement’s response, or lack thereof.”
In this photo from surveillance video provided by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District via Austin American-Statesman, a gunman carrying an AR-15 style rifle enters a hallway at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Tuesday, May 24 does and runs. 2022. (Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District/Austin American-Politician via AP)
But the video alone doesn’t answer all those questions — nearly two months later — about the law enforcement response. School police chief Pete Arredondo came to the fore in a massive law enforcement response involving many of those local, state and federal agencies.
State officials have cast Arredondo as the on-scene commander, saying that his errors caused police to delay killing the gunman. However, Arredondo told the Texas Tribune that he did not consider himself in charge of the operations and believed that someone else had taken control of the law enforcement response. He did not have a police radio at that time.
The rankings of on-scene officers from other agencies, including the Texas Department of Public Safety, are unclear. McLaughlin has accused DPS of downplaying its involvement in the response and issuing the wrong timelines.
Using photographs of the doors of Rob Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Texas Director of Public Safety Steve McCraw testifies at a Texas Senate hearing at the state capitol on Tuesday, June 21, 2022 in Austin, Texas. Last month, two teachers and 19 students were killed in a mass shooting in Uvalde. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Last week, criticism of the police response, written by tactical experts and requested by the DPS, led to allegations that an Uvalde police officer had a chance to shoot a gunman before entering the school. McLaughlin has said the account was false.
“All they keep doing is accumulating missed facts upon missed facts, and throwing it in there and see what sticks,” McLaughlin said.
In a statement, DPS director Steve McCraw said the video provided “terrifying evidence” that the law enforcement response was a failure.
