A Uvalde County sheriff’s deputy can be seen being restrained by other officers from engaging an active shooter, in leaked surveillance video from inside the elementary school where a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in May this year.
Video footage of the Uvalde police’s response to the 24 May shooting that was leaked on Tuesday shows 18-year-old Salvador Ramos walking through the halls at the Robb Elementary School carrying an AR-15 and cops stalled in the hallway for 77 minutes.
Ramos killed 22 people on 24 May at the school in Uvalde, Texas. Uvalde County sheriff’s deputy Felix Rubio’s 10-year-old daughter Alexandria Aniyah Rubio was one of the victims of Ramos that day.
The video shows officers checking their phones, using hand sanitiser, and running away from the gunfire as Ramos fired more than 100 rounds at children in two classrooms.
In a heart-wrenching scene, Mr Rubio can be seen being restrained by other officers from engaging Ramos.
The shocking video was first obtained by the Austin-American Statesman and KVUE. The 77-minute video puportedly shows how officers reacted while an active shooter was on a rampage.
After Ramos started shooting in a classroom, it was almost three minutes before three officers arrived in the same hallway and rushed toward the classrooms, crouching down.
The video had a disclaimer that read: “The sound of children screaming has been removed. Authorities say more than 100 rounds were fired.”
The video has shocked the families of the victims who have been saying that the police could have done more to save lives on that day.
Ramos entered the school at 11:33am on 24 May but was shot dead at 12:50pm. The gunman wasn’t stopped until Border Patrol agents entered the building and shot and killed him.
Parents of the victims have demanded to know why Ramos was allowed to walk freely in the school while officers stayed outside the classrooms.
Meanwhile, Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, has said that the person he identified as the incident commander — school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo — treated the situation as a “barricaded subject”. This calls for a “slower, methodical response, not an active shooter situation, in which police are charged with doing anything possible to stop a gunman, including putting their own lives on the line.”
“That was a mistake,” Mr McCraw said. He admitted that officers should have “confronted the gunman as soon as they arrived, carrying enough firepower to breach the classroom and stop the shooting.”
