City officials in Uvalde, Texas, released missing footage, including a 30-minute video that captures the hesitant police response during the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, which resulted in the tragic deaths of 19 children and two teachers.
The officials failed to release the footage earlier due to a legal settlement with news organizations suing for access.
The new videos include over 10 police body camera recordings and almost 40 dashboard camera videos, highlighting the police's failure to swiftly stop the shooter, who went on to kill children and teachers. It took officers 77 minutes to confront the gunman — a delay that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland likely cost lives, The Texas Tribune reported.
"Had law enforcement agencies followed generally accepted practices in an active shooter situation and gone right after the shooter to stop him, lives would have been saved and people would have survived," Garland said earlier this year, as per ProPublica.
In one of the videos released on Tuesday, officers are seen lining up in the school hallway, getting ready to enter a classroom about an hour after the shooter first went inside. While the video is not entirely new, it shows a different view from earlier footage.
The victims are blurred in the videos, but their cries and screams can still be heard, and blood can be seen in the hallway. The video also shows officers trying to save a victim's life by doing chest compressions on the sidewalk.
In another video, an officer wearing a body camera is seen crying and telling someone on the phone, "They're just kids. It's messed up. I never thought something like this would happen here," according to the Texas Tribune report.
Another officer asks if he should take the weapon from him and tells him to sit down and "relax." The seven-minute video shows medics treating someone in an ambulance after the officers entered the classroom.
Earlier reports by news organizations, along with The Washington Post, revealed that officers first treated teacher Eva Mireles, who was shot in Room 112, on the sidewalk because they didn't see any ambulances, even though two were parked nearby.
Mireles, one of three victims who still had a pulse when rescued, died in an ambulance that never left the school. Most other body camera footage shows officers standing after the breach or checking empty classrooms, without providing new information.
Officers are also seen outside the school answering questions from bystanders. The dashboard videos didn't reveal much new information either. They show police officers sitting in their patrol cars outside Robb Elementary.
Some officers are seen walking around the parking lot and talking on their radios and phones, though their conversations can't be heard. One video shows a TV crew arriving at the scene, while other videos show ambulances and parents waiting, with helicopters flying overhead.
In August, as part of the legal settlement, the city released a large collection of videos and audio recordings to media organizations, which largely confirmed earlier reporting. However, shortly after the release, city officials admitted that an officer from the Uvalde Police Department had informed them that some of his body camera footage was missing.
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