Uvalde police never even tried to open classroom doors during school shooting: report

For 77 minutes, Uvalde police officers stood by as accused gunman Salvador Ramos rampaged through Robb Elementary School, killing 19 students and two teachers. New surveillance footage reportedly shows that those sworn to serve and protect didn’t even bother wiggling the door handle to get into the classroom.

Responding police officers appear to have assumed the doors to classrooms 111 and 112 were locked without actually checking, a source told the San Antonio News-Express Saturday. Instead, they waited around for a master key until, more than an hour later, a Border Patrol tactical team killed the suspect.

The same source told the News-Express that even without the key, officers had almost immediate access to a crowbar-like tool that should have been able to pry the door open, if it was locked at all.

While Ramos’s massacre went on in the elementary school classrooms, Uvalde school district police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, who also served as the on-scene incident commander, kept his officers in the hallway while he waited for a janitor’s key ring, then for tactical gear to protect himself and his people. Inside the classrooms, children called 911, begging for help.

The 21 ‘beautiful angels’ who lost their lives in Uvalde, Texas school shooting

Law enforcement personnel stand outside Robb Elementary School after the May 24 shooting. (Dario Lopez-Mills/)

“Not a single responding officer ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put themselves at risk to save the children,” Arredondo told the Texas Tribune earlier this month, defending his decisions.

“We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced. Our objective was to save as many lives as we could, and the extraction of the students from the classrooms by all that were involved saved over 500 of our Uvalde students and teachers before we gained access to the shooter and eliminated the threat.”

The failed police response is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice as the official story changes seemingly daily.

In different tellings, officials have claimed then retracted that school resource officers “engaged” with the armed gunman outside the school, that a teacher left a door propped open and that officers “immediately breached” the classroom.

Last week, Vice reported that the Texas Department of Public Safety has asked the attorney general’s office to block the public release of police body camera footage from the massacre.