A schoolgirl was shot dead by the Texas gunman after police told children to shout out for help, a young survivor has claimed.
With Salvador Ramos still rampaging through Robb Elementary school, a boy has said that officers who had finally entered the school asked hiding pupils to call out so they could find them.
A boy was hiding with four others under a table that had a cloth covering it, which he thinks meant the 18-year-old shooter did not see them.
The youngster, whose parents did not want his name revealed, told how they were doing their best to keep hidden.
"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," the boy told Kens5.
“The cop barged into that classroom. The guy shot at the cop. And the cops started shooting."
The boy continued: “I was hiding hard. And I was telling my friend to not talk because he is going to hear us.”
It comes after fury among parents of the victims and other members of the public at what they see about the slow approach by the police to take down the shooter.
An hour is thought to have passed between Ramos entering the school and being shot dead.
In one video posted on Facebook by a man named Angel Ledezma, parents can be seen breaking through yellow police tape and yelling at officers to go into the building.
"It's already been an hour, and they still can't get all the kids out," Mr Ledezma said in the video.
Another video posted on YouTube showed officers restraining at least one adult. One woman can be heard saying, "Why let the children die? There's shooting in there."
"We got guys going in to get kids," one officer is heard telling the crowd. "They're working."
It has now been clarified that there was no armed police officer stationed at the school, after it was first stated by authorities that there had been.
The gunman fired more than 25 shots at the outset of the attack, the majority of times he fired, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The massacre, the latest in a years-long string of mass shootings, has reignited a national debate over the country's gun laws.
President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats have vowed to push for new restrictions, despite resistance from Republicans.
