CLAIM: The man who killed the gunman at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, was an off-duty Border Patrol officer who had a son and a spouse at school.
AP RATING: False. A U.S. Border Patrol tactical team shot and killed the gunman, according to the Texas Department of Homeland Security. While an off-duty officer said he went to the scene with a borrowed shotgun, he clarified in television interviews that he did not kill the gunman or enter the classroom where the shooting took place.
THE FACTS: Numerous false claims have spread online since an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School last week, including some social media posts in recent days that they misidentified who stopped the shooter.
“In case anyone missed it, the man who killed the school shooter in Texas was not even a service officer,” read a widely shared post on Facebook. “He was the father and spouse of a 4th grader, he was just a border patrol officer.”
The publication went on to describe that the off-duty officer was cutting his hair when he learned of the shooting, borrowed his barber’s shotgun, rushed to the scene, “evacuated his wife and his daughter and went back in and shot the suspect. ”
Much of this story coincides with the real story of Jacob Albarado, a Uvalde Border Patrol officer who said he went to school with a shotgun lent to his barber and helped evacuate the children. It is true that Albarado’s wife was a fourth-grade teacher at the school and her second-grade daughter at the school. But Albarado did not say he entered the classroom where the shooting took place, nor did he say he killed the gunman.
In fact, Albarado contradicted these false statements in television interviews.
“I didn’t have my gear, it was out of service, so I didn’t go in,” Albarado told NBC’s “Today Show” in a Tuesday interview where he also described how police broke windows to help children. to evacuate the school.
In an interview with CBS on Wednesday, Albarado further confirmed that he did not kill the gunman, saying: “I did not shoot him. I was not in the room with him shooting the boy. I never said he had shot him. “So I would like to clarify that as well.”
State police have consistently said a Border Patrol tactical team entered the classroom and killed the gunman. They did not name the officer who shot him.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including working with outside companies and organizations to add real context to misleading content circulating online. Learn more about AP fact checking.