Community members are questioning the police response to the Uvalde school shooting, with some accounts suggesting that law enforcement was slow to confront and neutralize the shooter.
A fourth-grade student who survived the massacre revealed horrifying new details of the final moments of the shooting, speaking to San Antonio KENS.
“When the cops came, the cop said: ‘Yell if you need help!’ And one of the persons in my class said ‘help.’ The guy overheard and he came in and shot her,” said the anonymous student.
“The cop barged into that classroom. The guy shot at the cop. And the cops started shooting.”
The same youth recounted the shooter entering his classroom and telling the elementary schoolers, “it’s time to die.”
“When I heard the shooting through the door, I told my friend to hide under something so he won’t find us,” said the student.
“I was hiding hard. And I was telling my friend to not talk because he is going to hear us.”
A Texas Department of Public Safety official broke down the timeline of the shooting and the police response in a Thursday press conference.
Texas official talks about how the Texas school massacre happened. pic.twitter.com/0lTpyzfD8u
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 26, 2022
Victor Escalon indicated that police personnel were shot in an initial attempt to neutralize the shooter, and set up a perimeter outside the school to call for additional backup and support.
A group of parents who arrived at the scene had prepared to rush the school themselves.
“There were five or six of [us] fathers, hearing the gunshots, and [police officers] were telling us to move back,” Javier Cazares told The Washington Post.
“We didn’t care about us. We wanted to storm the building. We were saying, ‘Let’s go’ because that is how worried we were, and we wanted to get our babies out.”
Cazares’ daughter Jacklyn was killed in the shooting.
A video of the nightmarish scene outside Robb Elementary School shows police detaining at least one distressed parent.
Ultimately, an off-duty Border Patrol agent breached the school and fatally shot the gunman.
Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez revealed that the Texas Rangers are leading an investigation into the circumstances of the shooting in a Thursday press release.
NEW: The chief of the Uvalde Police Department has a released a statement saying his officers responded “within minutes” along with school officers. “I know answers will not come fast enough,” he said. pic.twitter.com/8m7GvLZQo0
— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) May 26, 2022
