A media conference convened by Texas public safety officials to clarify the chronology of the attack provided fragments of previously unknown information.
When it was over, however, he had added to the troubling questions surrounding the attack, including how long it took police to get to the scene and confront the gunman, and the apparent failure to do so. lock the door of the school where you entered.
Dora Mendoza, grandmother of the victim Amerie Jo Garza, wipes the tears from her eyes as she pays tribute to her granddaughter. (AP)
Instead, Ramos entered the building “unobstructed” through a seemingly unlocked door, said Victor Escalon, regional director of the Texas Department of Homeland Security.
Local police officers entered the building four minutes later but were expelled after exchanging fire with the gunman, he said.
The crisis did not end until almost a hour later a group of Border Patrol agents entered.
Ramos, who had marked a spot in the fourth-grade classroom he was aiming for, was killed during the shooting, Escalon said.
Many other details of the case and the police response remained murky.
The cause of the massacre, the deadliest school shooting in the country from Newtown, Connecticut, a decade ago, remained under investigation, and authorities said Ramos had no known criminal or mental health record.
The men form a prayer circle at a memorial site for the victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas. (AP)
During the siege, frustrated spectators urged police officers to charge at the school, according to witnesses.
“Come in! Come in!” the women called the officers shortly after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside a house across the street.
Carranza said officers should have entered the school earlier: “There were more. There was only one.”
Texas Department of Homeland Security director Steve McCraw defended the agency on Wednesday, saying, “The bottom line is that there was law enforcement. They got involved immediately. They contained (Ramos) in the classroom. “.
Crosses with the names of the victims of Tuesday’s shooting are placed outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. (AP)
The head of the Border Patrol, Raúl Ortiz, did not give a timetable, but said repeatedly that the tactical agents of his agency who arrived at the school did not hesitate.
He said they moved quickly to enter the building, lining up in a “pile” behind an officer holding a shield.
“What we wanted to make sure of was to act quickly, to act quickly, and that’s exactly what these agents did,” Ortiz told Fox News.
But a law enforcement official said that once inside the building, 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 authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.
Police gather in front of Uvalde Elementary School, Texas. (AP)
Department of Homeland Security spokesman Lt. Christopher Olivarez told CNN that investigators were trying to establish whether the classroom was in fact closed or barricaded in any way.
Javier Cazares, whose fourth-grader daughter Jacklyn Cazares was killed in the attack, said she ran to school while the massacre was taking place.
When he arrived, he saw two agents outside the school and about five others listening to the students outside the building.
But it took 15 or 20 minutes before officers arrived with shields, equipped to face the gunman, he said.
As more parents went to school, he and others pressured police to act, Cazares said. He heard about four shots before he and the others were ordered back into a parking lot.
“Many of us were arguing with the police,‘ You all have to get in there. You all have to do your job. “His response was,” We can’t do our job because you’re interfering, “Cazares said.
Emergency services and premises meet outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. (AP) Police outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas after a mass shooting. (AP)
Ramos crashed his truck into a ditch outside the school, grabbed his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and fired at two people outside a funeral home, who fled unharmed, according to authorities and witnesses.
As for the school’s armed officer, he was driving nearby but was not on campus when Ramos crashed his truck, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the case. spoke of the condition of anonymity.
Investigators have concluded that the school official was not located between the school and Ramos, which left him unable to face the shooter before entering the building, the officer said.