Distressing new footage shows children breaking through windows and racing out the door as they attempted to flee from a gunman who opened fire on their elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last week.
On Monday, just days after 18-year-old Salvador Ramos murdered 19 children and two teachers holed up inside a fourth-grade classroom in the Texas city, Good Morning America released footage that shows the chaotic moment some students managed to break free.
In the video, dozens of officers and first responders are seen surrounding the perimeter of the building while some perch nearby a window. One of the windows then appears to be smashed to allow the elementary-age children crouching inside the same building where a live shooter has yet to be apprehended to then escape to safety.
The officers can be seen lifting the students out of the window, and then directing them to run away from the school where many of their classmates remained shut inside.
A separate angle shows a group of students streaming out of a back entry point, sprinting away from their school at breakneck speed, with some of the students appearing to trip and fall while trying to get away.
The footage of the gripping rescue effort arrives on the heels of federal agencies announcing there would be a formal investigation opened into the police response to the shooting at Robb Elementary School on 24 May.
On Sunday, the same day that US President Joe Biden travelled to the southern Texas city to pay his respects to the 21 victims’ family and friends, spokesman Anthony Coley said in a prepared statement that “at the request of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, the US Department of Justice will conduct a Critical Incident Review of the law enforcement response to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24”.
“The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events,” Mr Coley added.
Within days of the brutal massacre in Uvalde, details around the police response began to emerge that didn’t square with the official protocols in place for active shooters in schools.
One of the major failures cited in recent days was a tactical error where officers responding to the active shooter acted on bad information and believed temporarily that the active shooting stage of the incident had ended, and a barricaded standoff would begin instead.
“Of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period. There’s no excuse for that,” said Steven McCraw, Director and Colonel of the Texas Department of Public Safety, during a press conference on Friday.
As many as 19 officers then waited outside the classroom for up to an hour where dozens of students remained holed up with an armed Ramos, reports indicated.
