Recently released police body cam footage shows desperate parents pleading with officers to enter Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, during a tragic incident on May 24, 2022, where a gunman claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers.
This footage was among the last set of documents kept from the public in a prolonged legal effort for transparency that ended with its release this week.
In July, after 38 months filled with silence, grief, and legal hurdles, members of the Uvalde CISD board collectively agreed to disclose records from the tragic events at Robb Elementary.
In the revealed video, parents can be heard imploring officers to act quickly and enter the elementary school shortly after the deadly shooting by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, an attack considered one of the most lethal school shootings in United States history.
The sign for Robb Elementary School, seen adorned with flowers and tokens on June 17, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas, marks the site of a mass shooting in May that resulted in the deaths of 19 students and two teachers. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
A teacher, overwhelmed with fear, called 911 describing an overwhelming number of gunshots, as another teacher cried silently into the phone while being told by the dispatcher to remain quiet.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!” the first teacher cried before hanging up.
The delayed law enforcement response to the shooting — nearly 400 officers waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the gunman in a classroom filled with dead and wounded children and teachers — has been widely condemned as a massive failure.
Just before arriving at the school, Ramos shot and wounded his grandmother at her home. He then took a pickup truck from the home and drove to Robb Elementary.
The shooting has been the subject of multiple state and local investigations, which unilaterally condemned the police response.
The police response included nearly 150 U.S. Border Patrol agents and 91 state police officials, as well as school and city police. While dozens of officers stood in the hallway trying to figure out what to do, students inside the classroom called 911 on cellphones, begging for help, and desperate parents who had gathered outside the building pleaded with officers to go in. A tactical team eventually entered the classroom and killed the shooter.
