New Uvalde Video Casts Further Doubt on Police Explanations
FROM BAD TO WORSE
New footage shared by ABC News on Tuesday morning appears to cast further doubt on law enforcement’s explanations for why it took officers in Uvalde, Texas, more than an hour to confront the gunman barricaded in a classroom with young children last week. The video, filmed outside Robb Elementary School during the massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead, captures a 911 dispatcher announcing via radio that a child trapped inside the school “is advising he is in the room, full of victims.” The dispatcher goes on to say the room is “full of victims at this moment.” The dispatcher then notes that “eight to nine children” are inside. It’s not clear from the video if a police officer was on the receiving end of the radio when the call came through, which is said to have been at around 12:13 p.m.—more than 45 minutes after the first officers from the Uvalde Police Department arrived at the scene. Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven C. McCraw said last week that officers opted to delay storming the classroom due to the erroneous belief that the gunman was barricaded in the classroom on his own. In another harrowing video released by CNN on Tuesday, one of the child victims of the massacre can be heard in radio traffic speaking to a Customs and Border Protection agent at the scene. “I got shot!” the child can be heard saying in apparent distress after being asked if they were injured. It was not immediately clear if the child, who was not identified, was among the survivors.