Texas School Shooting: Police with Rifles, Shields Arrived Nearly 20 Minutes after Gunman

By Ariana Garcia

Source San Antonio Express-News

Newly obtained surveillance video shows multiple Uvalde, Texas police officers stood in a hallway at Robb Elementary School, armed with rifles and at least one ballistic shield, and waited 58 minutes to confront the gunman as he went on a shooting rampage inside two classrooms.

The footage, recently obtained by the Austin American-Statesman, shows officers were inside the hallway at 11:52 a.m. on May 24, just 19 minutes after the gunman entered two classrooms. Eleven officers had first entered the school within three minutes of the gunman, the Statesman reports.

However, the new video shows officers did not breach the door of the classroom until 12:50 p.m. The 18-year-old gunman used an AR-15-style rifle to kill 19 students and two teachers before he was eventually shot and killed by police. Video shows he entered a rear door, walked into a classroom and immediately started shooting before barricading himself, according to the Statesman.

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Pete Arredondo, chief of the Uvalde school district police force, called a landline at the Uvalde Police Department at 11:40 a.m. for help, according to the Statesman. "It's an emergency right now," he said. "We have him in the room. He's got an AR-15. He's shot a lot... They need to be outside the building prepared because we don't have firepower right now. It's all pistols." He also said: "I don't have a radio. I need you to bring a radio for me."

Body camera footage obtained by the Statesman shows four minutes after the call, at 11:44 a.m., more shots were detected from the gunman. At 11:52 a.m., an officer with a shield entered the school. Other officers seemingly grew impatient, one saying: "If there's kids in there, we need to go in there." Another responded, "Whoever is in charge will determine that."

A transcript of officer body camera footage showed Arredondo stood in the hallway trying to find keys to open the classroom door, the Statesman reports. However, officials say they do not believe officers tried to open the door. Arredondo apparently also tried to ask the gunman whether he could hear him.

Arredondo questioned out loud if officers would consider "popping him through the window? Get two shooters on either side of the window?" approximately 30 minutes before officers breached the classroom, according to the Statesman. "I say we breach those windows and shoot his [expletive] head off through the windows."

However, it wasn't until 12:46 p.m. that Arredondo told SWAT team officers who had arrived to breach the classroom. By then, medical units had arrived, and footage shows they were treating children in the hallway after the gunman was killed, according to the Statesman.

The video footage comes as Uvalde law enforcement continues to face intense scrutiny for their delay in response to the massacre, raising questions about whether more lives could have been saved if officers confronted the gunman sooner. The new information is expected to be presented at Texas Senate hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday.

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