UVALDE, Texas (AP) – Spectators urged police officers to charge at Texas elementary school, where a gunman’s attack killed 19 children and two teachers, a witness said Wednesday, while investigators they were working to trace the massacre that lasted more than 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.
“Come in! Come in! “Nearby women called officers shortly after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his home on the other side of the street. Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde Carranza said officers did not enter.
Minutes earlier, Carranza had seen Salvador Ramos crash his truck into a ditch outside the school, grab his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, and shoot at two people outside a nearby funeral home who fled unharmed.
He then exchanged fire with a school district security officer, ran inside and shot at two UValde police officers arriving outside the building, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety said. Texas, Travis Consider. All police officers were injured, he said.
Hours later, Considine said authorities did not know for sure if the school resources officer exchanged gunfire with Ramos.
Ramos charged against a classroom and started killing, an order official said.
“He barricaded himself by locking the door and started firing on children and teachers inside the classroom,” Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Department of Homeland Security told CNN. “It just shows you the complete evil of the shooter.”
All the killers were in the same classroom, he said.
Department of Homeland Security director Steve McCraw said it had happened “in about 40 minutes or so” since Ramos opened fire on the school’s security officer and when the Border Patrol team similar to SWAT shot him. Law enforcement later said it was unclear if the gunman and security guard had been shot.
Full coverage: shooting at Uvalde school
A police official familiar with the investigation said Border Patrol officers had trouble breaking down the classroom door and had to have a staff member open the room with a key. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation.
Carranza thought officers should have entered the school earlier.
“There were more, there was only one,” he said.
Uvalde is a predominantly Latin city of about 16,000 people about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the border with Mexico. Robb Elementary, which has about 600 second-, third-, and fourth-grade students, is a single-story brick structure in a predominantly residential neighborhood of modest homes.
Before attacking the school, Ramos shot and injured his grandmother at his home. Neighbors called police when he staggered out and saw that his face had been shot, Considine said.
Ramos had legally bought the rifle and a second one like this last week, just after his birthday, authorities said.
Investigators did not clarify the cause of the attack, which also left at least 17 injured. Gov. Greg Abbott said Ramos, a small town resident about 85 miles (135 kilometers) west of San Antonio, had no known criminal or mental health record.
“Evil devastated Uvalde yesterday,” Governor Greg Abbott said.
About half an hour before the mass shooting, Ramos sent the first of three messages online, Abbott said. Ramos wrote that he was going to shoot his grandmother, after he had shot the woman. On the last note, sent about 15 minutes before arriving at Robb Elementary, he said he was going to shoot an elementary school, according to Abbott. Investigators said Ramos did not specify which school.
Ramos sent private text messages one by one via Facebook and they were “discovered after the terrible tragedy,” company spokesman Andy Stone said. He said Facebook is cooperating with researchers.
The pain engulfed Uvalde when details emerged of the latest massacre that shook the United States.
Among the dead were Eliahna Garcia, an outgoing 10-year-old girl who loved to sing, dance, and play basketball; a roommate, Xavier Javier López, who was looking forward to a summer of swimming; and a teacher, Eva Mireles, with 17 years of experience whose husband is an officer in the school district’s police department.
“You can only tell by their angelic smiles that they were loved,” said Uvalde Superintendent of Schools Hal Harrell, struggling with tears as he remembered the murdered children and teachers. “That they liked coming to school, that they were beautiful people.”
Amid calls in the United States for stricter gun restrictions, the Republican governor has repeatedly spoken out about the mental health struggles among Texas youth and argued that tougher gun laws in Chicago, New York York and California are ineffective.
Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who is running against Abbott as governor, interrupted Wednesday’s press conference, calling the tragedy “predictable.” Pointing to Abbott, he said, “That’s up to you until you decide to do something different. This will keep happening.” O’Rourke was escorted while someone in the room called him, and the mayor of Uvalde, Don McLaughlin, called him “sick son of a bitch who would come to an agreement like this to make a political issue!”
Texas has some of the most pro-gun laws in the nation and has been the site of some of the deadliest shootings in the United States in five years.
“I don’t know how people can sell this kind of weapon to an 18-year-old boy,” said Syria’s Arizmendi, the victim’s aunt Eliahna Garcia, angry in tears. “What will he use it for but this purpose?”
The attack on the predominantly Latin city was the deadliest school shooting in the United States since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.
Uvalde’s tragedy was the latest in a seemingly endless wave of mass shootings in the United States in recent years. Just 10 days earlier, 10 black people were shot dead in a racist attack at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday that “the Second Amendment is not absolute” as he called for new gun restrictions following the massacre at a Texas elementary school. When the constitutional amendment on carrying weapons was passed, he said, “You can’t have a cannon. You couldn’t have a certain type of weapon. There have always been limitations.”
In a gloomy direction hours after the attack, Biden begged the Americans to “face the gun lobby.”
But the prospect of any reform of national arms regulations seemed weak. Repeated attempts over the years to expand background checks and enact other brakes have met with Republican opposition in Congress.
The shooting came days before the annual National Rifle Association convention in Houston began, with the intervention of the governor of Texas and the two Republican senators from the United States.
Ramos leaves other clues on social media that something would happen in the days and hours before the massacre.
The day he bought his second weapon last week, an Instagram account that investigators say belonged to Ramos apparently carried a photo of two AR-15-style rifles. This post was tagged by another Instagram user, asking them to share the image.
“I barely know you and you tag me in a photo with some guns,” replied the Instagram user, who has since deleted his profile. “It’s just scary.”
On the morning of the attack, the account linked to the gunman replied, “I’m about to do it.”
Instagram said it is working with law enforcement to review the account, but declined to answer questions about posts.
Investigators are also looking at an account on TikTok, possibly belonging to the shooter, with a profile that says, “Kids are afraid of IRL,” which means “in real life.”
Investigators still don’t know why Ramos targeted the school, McCraw of the Department of Public Safety said.
“Right now we don’t see any motive or catalyst,” he said.
Officers found one of the rifles in Ramos’ truck and the other in the school, according to information given to lawmakers. Ramos was wearing a tactical vest, but inside he had no hardened armored plate, lawmakers said. He also dropped a backpack containing several magazines full of ammunition near the school entrance.
Dillon Silva, whose nephew was in the classroom, said students were watching the Disney movie “Moana” when they heard several loud bangs and a bullet shattered a window. Moments later, his teacher saw the assailant pass in front of the door.
“Oh my God, he has a gun!” the teacher called twice, according to Silva. “The teacher didn’t even have time to close the door,” he said.
On Wednesday morning, volunteers were seen arriving at the city’s civic center with Bibles and therapy dogs. Three children and one adult remained in a San Antonio hospital, where two of them, a 66-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl, were in serious condition.
The close-knit community, built around a shady central square, includes many Hispanic families who have lived there for generations. It is found among fields of cabbage, onions, carrots and other vegetables. But many of the most stable jobs are provided by companies that produce building materials.
Residents are united by family and friendship, said Joe Ruiz, a pastor who was born and raised in Uvalde and has children and grandchildren.
“Everyone knows everyone or is connected to everyone,” Ruiz said.
His cousin’s wife, she said, was one of the teachers killed in the attack.
___
Eugene Garcia, Dario Lopez-Mills and Elliot Spagat in Uvalde, Jake Bleiberg in Dallas, Ben Fox, Michael Balsamo, Amanda Seitz and Eric Tucker in Washington, Paul J. Weber in Austin, Juan Lozano in Houston, Gene Johnson in Seattle and Rhonda …