Video reveals the failure of the police to stop the massacre

A new wave of anger swept the city of Yuvaldi on Tuesday over surveillance footage of police officers in bulletproof vests grinding into the lobby of Robb Primary School. A gunman commits a massacre in a classroom Fourth grade where 19 children and two teachers were killed.

The video I posted on Tuesday Austin Statesman It is a agonizing 80-minute recording of what has been known for weeks about one of the deadliest school shootings in American history: heavily armed police officers, some armed with rifles and body armor, gathered in the hallway and They waited over an hour before they entered and stopped the killing From 24 May.

But the images, which have not yet been made public, have once again upset Uvald’s residents and multiplied calls in a small South Texas town for accountability and explanations that were incomplete, and at times inaccurate, in the seven weeks since the shooting. Hours after the video was posted, some neighbors at an Ovaldi town hall meeting said they didn’t dare watch it.

Jesus Rizzo said officers who charge taxpayers to protect people should not “sit there” when children are in danger.

You could have saved some lives. You could have held someone’s hand while they were dying.” “The parents could have seen them for the last time as they were dying.”

Others demanded consequences for the police and more information in an investigation marked by confusing data that sometimes had to be retracted.

“Give these families some closure,” said Daniel Myers, a pastor in Ovaldi and a friend of the family of one of the victims.

An investigative panel led by Texas lawmakers earlier announced plans to show the video to Ovaldi residents for the first time on Sunday, as well as share its findings after weeks of closed-door testimony by more than 40 witnesses.

Don McLaughlin, the mayor of Yuvaldi, said in an interview with Associated Press. “These families are constantly surprised.”

A video clip from a camera in the hallway inside the school shows the gunman entering the building. AR-15 and includes a 911 tape of a teacher yelling, “Get down! Get down! Come to your room! Come to your room!”

Two officers approached the classroom minutes after the gunman entered, then They ran back to the sound of gunshots.

When the gunman first approached the classroom, the garbled boy could be seen banging his head in a corner of the hallway, then running backwards as gunshots rang out. Later, about 20 minutes before the police storm the room, a video clip shows a man in a jacket saying “Sheriff” using a wall-mounted hand sanitizer.

Throughout the video, children’s cries are written.

Officials said 77 minutes of the footage they are preparing to release this weekend do not contain images of children in class. “Seeing the full part of the law enforcement response, or lack thereof, is also important,” Republican Representative Dustin Burrows said, after the statesman posted the video.

But the video alone does not answer all the questions that remain, nearly two months later, about the response of law enforcement. They include how the school police chief, Peter Arredondo He was at the forefront of a massive law enforcement response that involved many local, state, and federal agencies.

State authorities chose Arredondo as commander at the scene and said that The police made a mistake in killing the gunman . However, Arredondo told the Texas Tribune that he does not consider himself in charge of the operations and that he assumes someone else has taken charge of the police response. I didn’t have a police radio at the time.

The roles of senior officers on the scene from other agencies, including the Texas Department of Public Safety, remain unclear. McLaughlin accused DPS of underestimating its response and publishing inaccurate timelines.

Last week, a critique of the police response written by tactical experts and commissioned by DPS claimed that the Uvalde police officer had a chance to open fire on the gunman before he entered the school. McLaughlin said the calculation is inaccurate.