One of the teachers killed in the Texas school massacre may have been still alive while a group of officers waited nearly an hour to remove the gunman, according to a recent 911 call from a student who saw the wounded woman.
“There are a lot of bodies,” Khloie Torres, 10, told a 911 dispatcher while locked in a classroom with the Robb Elementary School shooter, according to the New York Times.
“I don’t want to die, my teacher is dead, my teacher is dead, please send help, send help to my teacher, she is shot but still alive.”
The call was recorded at 12:10 p.m., 37 minutes after the gunman arrived on campus, and 40 minutes before police stormed the classroom door and killed the shooter.
Khloie was one of two students who called 911 from two adjoining classrooms where 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos was hiding. In all, 19 children and two teachers died.
The report confirmed several details of the police response to last Tuesday’s shooting, including that Commander Pete Arredondo did not have a police radio when he arrived. He also cited sources who confirmed that the tactical unit that Ramos took out disobeyed the order not to break down the classroom door.
A 10-year-old student testified that her teacher was “shot” in a 911 call during the shooting at the Uvalde school. Pete Luna / Uvalde Leader-News
Arredondo and local police are under scrutiny for how they handled the shooting, with questions about whether they could have saved lives if they had acted earlier. More than 140 law enforcement officers eventually went to school, but more than an hour passed since Ramos arrived until they finally entered the classroom to confront Ramos, the Times said.
“I don’t understand why someone didn’t come in,” Khloie’s mother, Jamie Torres, told the newspaper. While people would probably still have been shot, “they would have been far less than 21,” he said.
Fourth-grade teacher Irma Garcia tried to lock the door to her classroom when gunman Salvador Ramos started firing bullets. Uvalde CISD / ZUMA Press Wire Service
Ramos crashed a truck near the school at 11:28 a.m. He came out with an AR-15-style assault rifle before jumping a fence and entering an unlocked door of the school.
The immediate response was quick: a school employee was using a security app to alert you of a crash and an active shooter at 11:32 a.m., just two minutes after the first 911 call, report the Times. As a result, text messages and emails were sent and school employees received an emergency alarm on their phones, but the gunman was within less than a minute later, the Times said.
In room 112, where most of the carnage took place, the children were watching a movie when the alert came and Professor Irma Garcia rushed to the door to close it, but she having trouble finding the right key while the semi-automatic shots rang. room, Khloie told the Times. When Garcia grabbed the right key, Ramos was already there.
“He grabbed the door and opened it,” Khloie told the Times.
While the girl and others were hiding under a table, Ramos declared that she would “die” while Garcia tried to protect her students when the shots exploded. Garcia and his teacher Eva Mireles were among the dead, according to the report.
The boy then witnessed the gunman declare “good night” before shooting the other students. A boy who shouted that they were beaten caught the attention of the sadistic Ramos who fired again at the wounded boy, this time fatally, the Times said.
Officers carry a stretcher at the entrance to Robb Elementary School during the May 24, 2022 massacre. Pete Luna / Uvalde Leader-News via REUTERS
As the gunman moved between classes, Khloie whispered to her classmates to see if they were okay and at least one person responded. Another boy needed help removing his teacher’s body, Khloie told the newspaper.
“Just shut up so he doesn’t come back here,” he told his classmate.
A classmate was worried that the gunman would find them hidden under a table, the Times reported.
Khloie Torres recalled Salvador Ramos’ disturbing words to the students before he shot them dead.salv8dor_ / Instagram
The report also confirmed that a “heavily armed” tactical unit that included a Border Patrol officer, ICE officers and a deputy sheriff, had piled up in the hallway outside the adjoining classrooms and ignored orders from do not enter to remove Ramos.
The unit was not a formal group, but was made up of several officers who allegedly took charge of entering as the confrontation dragged on and the chain of command seemed to be in chaos.
Police response to the shooting is now under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Texas State Legislature.