Uvalde releases videos, 911 calls from 2022 school shooting
In a 911 call released Saturday by the city of Uvalde, Texas, a 10-year-old student inside a Robb Elementary School classroom can be heard counting the survivors and hushing crying, screaming classmates during the 2022 school shooting. The recording is among dozens of records released by the city after it was sued by a coalition of news organizations, including the Washington Post.
The records also include body-cam footage from five police officers, dash-cam video, recorded 911 calls, radio and emergency communications, and text messages between various officials. Lawsuits against Uvalde County, the school district and the Texas Department of Public Safety for more records are ongoing.
“A lot of people are gone,” said Khloie Torres, as she tried to count those still alive in her fourth-grade classroom but gave up after reaching eight. Other students can be heard screaming out to officers, pleading for help, and the injured can be heard moaning. Torres tried to quiet them.
“Please help, they are dying,” she told the 911 dispatcher. Torres survived the shooting.
The Post had previously obtained the vast majority of the records released Saturday from the Texas Rangers investigation, including excerpts of Torres’ phone call. But the new information includes her full 17-minute conversation with a dispatcher.
In the extended 911 call, the sound of a police radio and the voices of officers standing outside the classroom are faintly audible in the background through Torres’ phone.
A Post investigation with ProPublica and the Texas Tribune found that the emergency medical response was thwarted by the botched police efforts to stop the gunman. Law enforcement’s ill-fated transition from an active shooter stance to a barricaded subject slowed the response and doomed some of the lifesaving efforts, a 20-minute documentary published last year by the Post also found.
The newly released records come more than two years after the massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead, and as clamoring from victims’ families for greater transparency about the actions of law enforcement has reached a fever pitch. Two school district police officers, including former chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, have been criminally charged in connection with the botched law enforcement response to the massacre.
Arredondo defended himself in a CNN interview this past week, his first interview since being charged with 10 felony counts of child endangerment. He said he is being scapegoated and that Texas state troopers should have taken over incident command. It took more than 70 minutes for any officer to confront the shooter.
“These are my children, too, people don’t understand that,” Arredondo said, describing how he walked those hallways daily and got to know the students who were gunned down. He blamed “lies and deceptions” for fueling false narratives that lost him the trust of his community.
Adrian Gonzales, the other former school district police officer facing charges, pleaded not guilty to 29 counts of child endangerment last month. Few, if any, Texas prosecutors have ever charged a law enforcement officer with such a crime. But a Uvalde County grand jury indicted the pair in late June.