Newly published surveillance footage has prompted fresh criticism of the police response to the mass shooting inside an Uvalde school in which 19 children and two teachers died.
The video, published on Tuesday by the Austin American-Statesman and the local television channel KVUE shows the gunman entering Robb Elementary school with an AR-15-style rifle, and later shows officers in body armor waiting in the hallway outside the fourth-grade classroom where the 21 people were killed.
It ends before law enforcement officers breached the classroom and confronted the gunman, having spent 77 minutes waiting outside.
The footage, from May 24th, shows two officers approaching the classrooms not long after the gunman. The officers then run along the hallway amid the sounds of gunfire. More officers, some with shields and rifles, then mass in the hall.
“They just didn’t act. They just didn’t move,” Ronald Garza, Uvalde county commissioner, told CNN on Wednesday.
“I just don’t know what was going through those policemen’s minds that tragic day, but … there was just no action on their part.”
Manny Garcia, the editor of the American-Statesman, said the newspaper decided to publish the video “to continue to bring to light what happened at Robb Elementary, which the families and friends of the Uvalde victims have long been asking for”.
But some family members expressed outrage at the publication of the footage.
“Shame on you,” said Berlinda Arreola, the grandmother of shooting victim Amerie Jo Garza, to NBC News – addressing the outlets which published the video.
“All you wanted was the fame and recognition to say you were the first person to leak that video without even taking any of the parents’, grandparents’, family members’ thoughts into consideration.”
Gloria Cazares, whose nine-year-old daughter was killed in the shooting, wrote on Facebook:
“This is the opposite of what the families wanted!!!!!”
Cazares urged people not to share the video.
“Our hearts are shattered all over again!!!!!!!!!” she said.
The edited footage was published as Texas lawmakers investigating the shooting are preparing to release their findings and show body-camera and surveillance footage to mourning families and other residents of Uvalde.
Officials said the 77 minutes of footage they are preparing to release this weekend did not contain images of children. The footage has received renewed attention over the past week as anger mounts in Uvalde over an incomplete account about the slow police response and calls for accountability seven weeks after the worst school shooting in Texas history.
Dustin Burrows, the Republican Texas House representative who is leading an investigation into the shooting, said that the full video and findings from a preliminary report would be shown on Sunday in Uvalde to residents and distributed publicly soon after.
Responding to the release of the video by the American-Statesman, Burrows tweeted: “While I am glad that a small portion is now available for the public, I do believe watching the entire segment of law enforcement’s response, or lack thereof, is also important.”
The footage includes 911 tape of a teacher screaming: “Get down! Get in your rooms! Get in your rooms!”
As the gunman approaches the classrooms, a child down the hallway can be seen poking their head around the corner and then running back while shots ring out. Later, about 20 minutes before police breach the room, the video shows a man wearing a vest that says “sheriff” using a hand sanitizer dispenser mounted on the wall.
Burrows said his committee had interviewed more than 40 people behind closed doors over the last several weeks, including law enforcement who were at the scene. He has defended the committee talking with witnesses in private to elicit more candor about what happened.
State police said last week that the Uvalde county district attorney, Christina Busbee, had objected to releasing the video. Busbee has not publicly addressed those claims and did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment left with her office on Tuesday.
State and local officials have previously cited the prosecutor’s continuing investigation as a reason they could not release information about the shooting, including body camera footage.
But the video alone will not answer all the questions that remain, nearly two months later, about the law enforcement response.
Among them are how the police chief, Pete Arredondo, came to the forefront of the huge law enforcement response involving numerous local, state and federal agencies.
State authorities have cast Arredondo as the on-scene commander and said his errors delayed police killing the gunman.
Arredondo has told the Texas Tribune he didn’t consider himself to be in charge of operations, and said he assumed someone else had taken control of the law enforcement response. He did not have a police radio at the time.
The roles of the ranking on-scene officers from other agencies, including the Texas department of public safety, remain unclear.
Local officials in Uvalde have accused the state police of repeatedly putting out inaccurate information about the shooting while glossing over the role of its own troopers.
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