Eight key moments of the Uvalde shooting captured by police body cameras

Throughout the early phases of the police response, the body digital camera footage exhibits that many officers weren’t certain if there have been nonetheless individuals in the lecture rooms with the gunman.

About 25 minutes after the shooter entered the faculty, an officer requested if any college students or faculty workers had been injured. Uvalde Police Sgt. Daniel Coronado replied, “No, we don’t know anything about that.” This was after Ruiz had already spoken to his spouse and informed officers she was inside the lecture rooms and injured.

In Uvalde Police Officer Justin Mendoza’s body digital camera footage, 37 minutes after police first arrived, a 911 dispatcher is heard saying a scholar known as from inside the classroom and stated it was “full of victims.”

Uvalde faculties police Chief Pete Arredondo, who was assumed to be the incident commander throughout the shooting and was positioned on administrative go away a month in the past, realized that officers had positioned the appropriate key to open the locked classroom door however heeded warning earlier than coming into.

“If y’all are ready to do it, you do it, but someone should distract them from that other window, brother,” Arredondo is heard saying about an hour and eleven minutes after police first entered the faculty.

“We need flash-bangs,” Coronado informed Arredondo whereas he was on the telephone, implying officers ought to receive nonlethal stun grenades earlier than coming into.

These last-minute delays that had been recommended by Coronado and Arredondo appear to go towards greatest practices when coping with an lively shooter who continues to be a hazard to civilians. Instead of following the lively shooter doctrine developed after the 1999 Columbine High School bloodbath, which dictates that officers instantly confront lively shooters, police at Robb Elementary retreated after coming underneath hearth after which waited for backup.

Arredondo has borne a big share of the criticism for failing to take over command of the scene and showing to deal with the scenario as a barricaded shooter scenario as an alternative of an lively shooter with hostages. But the Texas House committee report additionally famous that neither state police nor federal brokers, who vastly outnumbered Uvalde faculty and metropolis police (376 officers from completely different legislation enforcement businesses responded to the shooting), requested Arredondo if he may cede command authority.