Leaked video of the Uvalde school shooting shows officers standing back for more than an hour as the gunman sprayed bullets into classrooms full of children. The video obtained by the Austin-American Statesman on Tuesday afternoon begins with Salvador Ramos, 18, crashing his truck outside Robb Elementary School on the morning of May 24 before entering the building with an AR-15. A teacher can be heard calling 911 and saying, “The kids are running. My God,” and telling the students to “come down, go to your rooms, go to your rooms.” Then a young boy appears in the frame who sees Ramos and runs away. He probably didn’t get hurt. The video shows the gunman firing into a classroom and then entering. Screams can be heard from children and teachers inside. Three minutes after the gunman, the first armed police are seen arriving in the hallway and running towards the classroom. The cops rush to the classroom and duck. A burst of gunfire is heard and an officer can be seen grabbing the back of his head. The officers quickly run back to the end of the corridor, directly under a surveillance camera. The video shows 13 rifles in the hallway in the first half hour of the massacre. The first shield arrives less than 20 minutes after the gunman opens fire. Dozens of police officers can be seen in the hallway, in gear. Officials had announced that the video would be released next Monday. On Tuesday, Rep. Dustin Burrows, who is chairman of the Texas House committee investigating the massacre, said he would be released a day early, Sunday, after being screened in the Uvalde community. Burroughs, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and many of the victims’ families had called for the video to be released. The Statesman said it released an edited version of the 77-minute video before it was scheduled to be released to show how the law enforcement response unfolded. “The video tells in real time the brutal story of how heavily armed officers failed to immediately launch a coherent and aggressive response to stop the shooter and save more children if possible,” the newspaper wrote. “And it adds to the trauma of those parents, friends and bystanders who were outside the school begging the police to do something, and for those survivors who quietly called 911 from inside the classroom to beg for help.” Contact our news team by emailing us at [email protected] For more stories like this, check out our news page.
