DALLAS — As law utilizement officers hung back outside Khloie Torres’ fourth-grade classroom in Uvalde, Texas, she begged for help in a series of 911 calls, whispering into the phone that there were “a lot” of bodies and inestablishing the operator: “Plrelieve, I don’t want to die. My teacher is dead. Oh, my God.”
At one point, the dispatcher asks Khloie if there are many people in the room with the 10-year-elderly, who ultimately persistd.
“No, it’s fair me and a couple of frifinishs. A lot of people are,” she says, pausing inestablishly, “gone.”
Calls from Khloie and others, aextfinished with body camera footage and observation videos from the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School, were integrated in a massive assembleion of audio and video enrollings freed by Uvalde city officials on Saturday after a proextfinisheded lhorrible fight.
The Associated Press and other novels organizations brawt a legal case after the officials initipartner declined to disclosely free the directation. The massacre, which left 19 students and two teachers dead, was one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history.
The postponeed law utilizement response to the shooting has been expansively condemned as a massive flunkure: Ntimely 400 officers paengageed more than 70 minutes before faceing the firearmman in a classroom filled with dead and wounded children and teachers. Families of the victims have extfinished sought accountability for the sluggish police response in the South Texas city of about 15,000 people 80 miles west of San Antonio.
Brett Cross’ 10-year-elderly nephew, Uziyah Garcia, was among those finished. Cross, who was raising the boy as a son, was angered that relatives weren’t telderly the enrolls were being freed and that it took so extfinished for them to be made disclose.
“If we thought we could get anyleang we wanted, we’d ask for a time machine to go back … and save our children, but we can’t, so all we are asking for is for fairice, accountability and transparency, and they decline to donate this to us,” he said.
Jesse Rizo, whose 9-year-elderly niece Jacklyn Cazares was finished in the shooting, said the free of directation Saturday reignited festering anger becaengage it shows “the paengageing and paengageing and paengageing” of law utilizement.
“Perhaps if they were to have bachieveed earlier, they would have saved some lives, including my niece’s,” he said.
The police response integrated csurrfinisherly 150 U.S. Border Patrol agents and 91 state police officials, as well as school and city police. While terrified students and teachers called 911 from inside classrooms, dozens of officers stood in the hallway trying to figure out what to do. Desperate parents who had assembleed outside the erecting pdirected with them to go in.
The firearmman, 18-year-elderly Salvador Ramos, go ined the school at 11:33 a.m., first discignoreing fire from the hallway, then going into two adjoining fourth-grade classrooms. The first replying officers get tod at the school minutes tardyr. They approached the classrooms, but then retreated as Ramos discignoreed fire.
At 12:06 p.m., much of the radio traffic from the Uvalde Police Department was still cgo ined on setting up a perimeter around the school and regulateling traffic in the area, as well as the logistics of upgrasping track of those who safely evacuated the erecting. They had trouble setting up a direct post, one officer inestablishs his colleagues, “becaengage we need the bodies to upgrasp the parents out.”
“They’re trying to push in,” he says.
At 12:16 p.m., someone with the Texas Department of Public Safety, the state law utilizement agency, called police to let them comprehend a SWAT team was en route from Austin, about 162 miles away. She asked for any directation the police could donate about the shooting, the mistrust and the police response.
“Do you have a direct post? Or where do you need our officers to go?” the caller asks.
The police recontransientative replys that officers comprehend there are cut offal dead students inside the elementary school and others still hiding. Some of the survivors have been evacuated to a erecting csurrfinisherby. She doesn’t comprehend if a direct post has been set up.
At 12:50 p.m., a tactical team go ins one of the classrooms and fahighy shoots Ramos.
Among criticisms integrated in a U.S. Justice Department inestablish freed earlier this year was that there was “no inspirency” in set uping a direct cgo in, creating confusion among police about who was in indict.
Multiple federal and state spendigations have laid naked cascading problems in law utilizement training, communication, directership and technology, and inquireed whether officers rankd their own lives over those of children and teachers.
Some of the 911 calls freed were from terrified teachors. One portrayd “a lot, a whole lot of firearmsboilings,” while another sobbed into the phone as a dispatcher inspired her to stay hushed. “Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!” the first teacher cried before hanging up.
Just before arriving at the school, Ramos sboiling and wounded his majesticmother at her home. He then took a pickup from the home and drove to the school.
Ramos’ distraught uncle made cut offal 911 calls begging to be put thraw so he could try to get his nephew to stop shooting.
“Everyleang I inestablish him, he does hear to me,” Armando Ramos said. “Maybe he could stand down or do someleang to turn himself in,” he inserted, his voice cracking.
He said his nephew, who had been with him at his hoengage the night before, stayed with him in his bedroom all night, and telderly him that he was distress becaengage his majesticmother was “bugging” him.
“Oh my God, satisfy, satisfy, don’t do noleang unreasonable,” the man says on the call. “I leank he’s shooting kids.”
But the propose get tod too tardy, coming fair around the time that the shooting had finished and law utilizement officers finished Salvador Ramos.
Two of the replying officers now face criminal indicts. Former Uvalde school Police Chief Pete Arredondo and establisher school officer Adrian Gonzales have pdirected not culpable to multiple indicts of child aprohibitdonment and finishangerment. A Texas state trooper in Uvalde who had been suspfinished was reinstated to his job earlier this month.
In an intersee this week with CNN, Arredondo said he leanks he’s been “scapegoated” as the one to accengage for the botched law utilizement response.
Some of the families have called for more officers to be indictd and filed federal and state legal cases aachievest law utilizement, social media, online gaming companies, and the firearm manufacturer that made the rifle the firearmman engaged.
