Uvalde County Sheriff’s deputy Felix Rubio is seen being restrained as officers failed to engage Robb Elementary School shooter Salvador Ramos in harrowing new leaked footage from that fateful day.
The video also shows how easy it was for teen gunman Salvador Ramos to saunter into the school on the morning of May 24 and slaughter 19 children, including Rubio’s daughter, Lexi, 10, as well as two teachers.
At one point, as a crying, swaying and gesticulating Rubio looks on helplessly, another officer steps across him to use hand sanitizer.
The leaked footage shows cops stalled in the hallway for 77 minutes, checking their phones and running away from gunfire as Ramos fired more than 100 rounds at children in two classrooms.
As multiple law enforcement agencies finally begin to engage Ramos, an officer who stays back steps across a physically restrained Rubio to use hand sanitizer.
Rubio’s daughter, Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, was one of Ramos’ 19 victims. She was 10 years old.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Rubio, an Iraq war veteran, and his wife, Kimberly, became advocates for gun reform. They were with their daughter just hours before she was killed at an awards ceremony held at the school.
Felix said in a tear-filled interview with CNN just days after the attack: ‘All I can hope is that she’s just not a number. This is enough. No one else needs to go through this. We never needed to go through this, but we are.’
The shocking video was first obtained by The Austin-American Statesman. As many have predicted, it demonstrates how police in Uvalde failed the victims and their families on that day.
During the clip, a disclaimer appears reading: ‘Editor’s note: The sound of children screaming has been removed. Authorities say more than 100 rounds were fired.’
Close to the end of the stand off, Uvalde County Sheriff’s Deputy Felix Rubio, bottom right, is shown being restrained by brother officers from engaging Ramos
Ramos’ daughter, Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, 10, was one of the 19 children who were killed on May 24
Leaked footage shows how cops in Uvalde, Texas , stalled in the hallway, checked their phones, used hand sanitizer and ran away from the gunfire at the school as Ramos fired more than 100 rounds at children
Leaked surveillance footage shows Salvador Ramos, 18, sauntering through the halls of Robb Elementary School on May 24 carrying an AR-15
The footage has been the source of political debate at the highest levels with Texas. Governor Greg Abbott, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin and Rep. Dustin Burrows, who leads the Texas House investigative committee inquiry into the shooting, calling for the release of the video.
Ramos entered the school at 11:33am, and wasn’t shot dead until 12:50pm.
The gunman wasn’t stopped until Border Patrol agents entered the building and shot and killed him.
Furious parents and relatives of the 19 children and two teachers murdered on May 24 are demanding to know why the 18-year-old gunman was free to continue his rampage as the officers stayed outside the classrooms.
The video begins at 11:28 am from the point of view of a camera in the Robb Elementary School parking lot.
It shows Salvador Ramos violently swerving his car around a corner and crashing into a ditch in the distance. A plume of dusty smoke emerges from the scene of the crash.
Two unknown men approach the car, Ramos responds by firing shots at the them. The two men run for their lives, across the road and toward Robb Elementary School.
This photo of Kimberly and Felix with their daughter was taken just hours before crazed gunman Salvador Ramos began his rampage
Two minutes later, a teacher is heard telling a 911 operator: ‘I do not see him. I cannot see him.’ The camera switches to a camera pointing at Robb Elementary School. She says: ‘The kids are running. Oh my God.’
Her voice breaks in desperation as she cries: ‘Oh my God.’
Shortly after that, Ramos fires off random rounds at the school from the parking lot.
The teacher instructs the students to ‘get down, get in your rooms, get in your rooms.’
The camera switches again to footage captured by a witness who recorded Ramos calmly walking into the school, carrying an AR-15.
Within the same minute, the camera switches to surveillance video from inside the the hallways of Robb Elementary School.
The light beams from the doorway as Ramos enters an empty hallway. Before getting to a corner, he stalls for a second as if to check if he’s going the right way.
As he begins to disappear down a wide hallway, he drops his gun by his side to brush back his long hair en route to classrooms 111 and 112 where the massacre unfolded.
As he begins to disappear down a wide hallway, he drops his gun by his side to brush back his long hair en route to classrooms 111 and 112 where the massacre unfolded
Ramos begins to disappear out of the view of the camera. This is the last time we see him in the leaked footage
The first officers who arrived on the scene just minutes after Ramos, initially attempted to charge the classroom
From the foreground, a young boy comes into the shot. He turns a corner and stands frozen for a few seconds. Next, loud gunfire his heard.
The boy can be seen running away, with his arms apparently flailing.
A message appears on the screen saying: ‘The gunman fires his AR-15 inside two classrooms for two and a half minutes.’
Three minutes later, the first police officers arrive on the scene, three cops, two uniformed and one plain clothes charge towards the class room before crouching in the hallway as four others calmly stay back.
The four officers who stay back talk to each other. Their conversation is inaudible.
One uniformed officer who stayed back looking forward at his three colleagues attempting to engage Ramos, checks his phone quickly.
Three loud bangs are then heard.
After they hear gunfire, the two uniformed cops retreat slightly while the plain clothes officer scurries all the way to safety behind a wall, checking his clothes to see if he has been hit by volley of rounds.
One could even be seen pulling his cellphone out of his pocket, apparently to check the time. Others, the Statesman reports, sent texts and looked at floor plans as precious minutes ticked by.
A full 19 minutes after the first officers attempted to engage Ramos, the first heavy reinforcements arrive as cops with long guns, tactical gear and a ballistic shield are shown in the hallway. They remain a safe distance from Ramos.
One officer leans the shield safely against a wall.
The first ballistic shield that was used by the responding officers is rested against a wall
At one point, the video switches over to picture in picture illustrating just how many officers were there waiting to engage
A little over half an hour after the 911 call went in, more officers, clad in combat gear, armed with long guns and ballistic shields, pile into the hallway. They do not attempt to engage Ramos.
A picture in picture appears showing a small screen with an officers body camera illustrating the amount of officers with weapons drawn in the hallway, waiting. One officer can be seen busy scrolling on his phone in the body camera footage.
The main pictures show officers in tactical gear forming a barricade of shields in preparation for an attack by Ramos.
Ramos shoots off four more rounds, 48 minutes after first arriving at the school. There is little initial reaction from the assembled members of law enforcement. The phrase: ‘Shots fired’ is repeated.
There is more inaudible conversation as officers finally begin to march down the hallway toward Ramos.
One leading the way appears to be wearing civilian clothing, including shorts and a bullet proof vest. He is armed with a rifle.
The more heavily armored officers hide behind him.
An officer in civilian clothing and bullet proof vest and helmet obtains hand sanitizer from a dispenser.
After more than half an hour, other officers could be seen entering the building with ballistic shields and rifles pointed down the hallway to the classrooms where Ramos is hiding out.
Finally, officers breach the classroom and engage Ramos, quickly killing him. A full 77 minutes after the nightmare began.
After 77 minutes, Border Patrol agents could be seen storming into the classroom and are heard opening fire, but still the Uvalde police stand back
The video was expected to be released on Sunday after it is shown to the Uvalde community, Rep. Dustin Burrows tweeted on Tuesday
Salvador Ramos, 18, (pictured) shot and killed 19 students and two teachers while cops held back for over an hour during the Uvalde massacre on May 24
Prior to the release of the video, Burrows tweeted : ‘The Committee will convene at 2 p.m. on Sunday in Uvalde,’ Burrows wrote. ‘We will meet with members of the community first, and provide them an opportunity to see the hallway video and discuss our preliminary report. Very soon thereafter, we will release both to the public.’
Rep. Burrows said the video ‘would contain no graphic images or depictions of violence.
‘I can tell people all day long what it is I saw, the committee can tell people all day long what we saw, but it’s very different to see it for yourself,’ he said. ‘And we think that’s important.’
He said he is committed to continuing ‘to put pressure on the situation and consider all options in making sure that video gets out for the public to view.’
Officials have previously admitted that the situation could have been stopped within just three minutes after images from surveillance footage inside the school showed heavily-armed police officers holding ballistic shields and aiming their rifles down the hallway.
The image was taken at 12.04pm on May 24 – 46 minutes before Border Patrol agents entered the classroom and fatally shot Ramos, and more than half an hour after he first entered the building and started firing.
The officers were stopped by police chief Pete Arredondo, who claimed the suspect had barricaded himself inside and said he needed a key to get inside.
The move to release the new footage comes after a group of parents marched through the town on Sunday night demanding accountability, as police chief Pete Arredondo remains on administrative leave.
Children at Robb Elementary School are pictured running to safety after Ramos opened fire in two classrooms on May 24
Crime scene tape surrounded Robb Elementary School in the aftermath of the shooting
Mayor Don McLaughlin said on Friday he backed the plans by the Texas House Special Committee to release the clips.
McLaughlin added that he hopes sharing the clips will ‘bring clarity to the public,’ amid increasing questions as to why Ramos wasn’t stopped earlier in his rampage after the surveillance photos were released by the Austin American-Statesman last month.
Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police chief, has said that he thought the gunman was barricaded inside, away from the children, and wanted more equipment for the police before they went in.
But there are now records of children calling 911 begging for help, and reports of police officers outside urging Arredondo to let them go in.
Authorities have admitted there was a failure of police officers to act that day as Ramos continued his rampage. Officers stand outside the elementary school following the shooting
Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Chief Pete Arredondo was in charge and mistakenly thought there were no other kids alive in the room once the shooter had barricaded himself inside
The AustinAmerican-Statesman has also previously obtained damning transcripts showing Arredondo asking for help.
Three minutes after Ramos entered the building, 11 officers were inside.
At 11:40am, seven minutes after Ramos set foot inside Robb Elementary, Arredondo called Uvalde Police Department and asked for help.
‘It’s an emergency right now,’ he said.
‘We have him in the room. He’s got an AR-15. He’s shot a lot.
‘They need to be outside the building prepared because we don’t have firepower right now. It’s all pistols.’
Arredondo added: ‘I don’t have a radio. I need you to bring a radio for me.’
Four minutes later, at 11:44am, body camera footage picked up more shots from the gunman.
Then, at 11:52am, the photo showed the officers with a ballistic shield.
‘If there’s kids in there, we need to go in there,’ one officer said, according to body camera transcripts.
Another responded: ‘Whoever is in charge will determine that.’
Despite the officers having rifles, Arredondo insisted they find the keys to open the door.
At 12:03pm, an officer with another ballistic shield entered the school, and a third arrived two minutes later.
Around 12:20pm – 45 minutes after the attack began – Arredondo tried to speak to the gunman, and then wondered whether he could be killed from outside the classroom.
Arredondo asked if officers would consider ‘popping him through the window?’
He suggested: ‘Get two shooters on either side of the window? I say we breach those windows and shoot his (expletive) head off through the windows.’
At 12:46pm, Arredondo told SWAT team officers who had arrived that they should breach the classroom door if they were ready.
They did so four minutes later.
Uvalde School Police Chief Pete Arredondo, second from left, during a news conference outside of the Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, a few days after the shooting
Police are seen staging outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24
Police run near Robb Elementary School following the shooting on May 24
Meanwhile, video shows that students and teachers were trapped inside classrooms 111 and classrooms 112 as Ramos fired consecutive rounds of ammunition on his killing spree while armed officers stood quietly in the hallway.
And a bombshell report from the Texas State University’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training reveals ‘missed opportunities to save lives.’
The report revealed that ‘one officer saw the shooter outside the school but did not take action.’
The ‘officer did not hear a response [on his radio] and turned to get confirmation from his supervisor,’ the report details.
‘When he turned back to address the suspect, the suspect had already entered the west hall exterior door at 11:33:00.’
The Mayor said last month he disputed the report’s findings, and said in a statement in part, that ‘it was a coach with children on the playground, not the shooter.’
Arnulfo Reyes, 45, a fourth-grade teacher at Robb Elementary School, said he does not understand why Arredondo refused to act.
Reyes revealed to NPR that he is second-cousins with school’s police chief who has been blasted for holding officers back for more than an hour as Ramos locked himself inside the building with the students.
Reyes, a fourth-grade teacher (pictured speaking to ABC News) was wounded in the shooting on May 24, where Ramos killed all 11 of his students at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde
He said his classroom’s doorknob had been broken for at least two years – something he says Arredondo knew even though the police chief claimed he had to search for keys to enter the building.
‘I wish he would have said, “I’m going in there because that’s my family,”‘ Reyes said. ‘But he didn’t.’
‘There’s really no excuse for 77 minutes,’ he added of the time it took for Border Patrol agents to enter the elementary school and confront Ramos, who they shot dead.
During that time, Reyes said, he had to play dead for about an hour after Ramos shot him in the arm and watched as he gunned down all 11 of his students who were in the classroom that day.
Ramos later shot him again in the back, causing him to struggle to breathe.
Now, he said, he is not sure whether he will return to teaching after spending 17 years molding young minds.
In his interview with NPR, Reyes recounted how seven of his students left school early on May 24, following an awards ceremony for perfect attendance as the school year was wrapping up.
The remaining 11 students were watching a movie together when the first shots rang out, a moment he previously recounted to ABC News. None of them survived.
All 11 of Reyes’ students at Robb Elementary School were killed in the school massacre
The 1veteran teacher said as he went to huddle under a table with the children, he turned around to see Ramos standing there – who then let off a burst of fire into the classroom, striking Reyes three times before he went on to shoot all of his students.
At one point, he said, he could hear Ramos responding to calls from the police, who remained outside for more than an hour.
Finally, officers returned to Reyes’ classroom, where he said he heard them pleading with Ramos to come out. They told him they just wanted to speak with him, and that they were not going to hurt him, the teacher told ABC.
There was silence, he said, before cops finally breached the door and shot Ramos dead. By then, Reyes’ 11 students had already been killed.
Parents and community members demanded answers about the police response to the shooting on May 24 in a march that was held last week
They gathered at the school and marched to Uvalde Plaza where they named the victims and recounted their broken dreams
Parents and community members came together last weekend to demand answers in the attack, with hundreds marching through the city calling for accountability.
The Unheard Voices March and Rally started at the elementary school, with community members carrying signs reading ‘Remember Their Names, and chanting ‘Save Our Kids,’ according to the New York Times.
Then, as they assembled at Uvalde Plaza, relatives took turns reading their loved ones’ names and recounting their shattered dreams.
The march was organized by Javier Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter, Jackie was killed in the shooting.
He said parents were demanding a detailed explanation about what happened during the police response on May 24, and demanding officials hold those at fault accountable.
Some are also calling for gun control measures to be enacted in the politically conservative state.
‘We want accountability from all levels – local level, county level, state level, federal level,’ said mother Tina Quintanilla-Taylor, who pulled her child out of school early that day.
On Wednesday, the committee of eight Republicans and three Democrats will hear from experts on mental health and firearm safety.