School massacre in Uvalde
Killed teacher: Her husband is a police officer. He wanted to save her. But they didn’t let him
Police officers outside the entrance of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The actions of the emergency services are being investigated by the US Department of Justice, among others.
© Allison Dinner / AFP
One of the teachers killed in the school massacre in Uvalde called her husband while she was dying. Ruben Ruiz is a police officer in the small Texas town. But when he wanted to go to his wife, he was disarmed.
In the massacre at Rob Elementary School in Uvalde, it took more than an hour for emergency services to eliminate the attacker. The policeman Ruben Ruiz wanted to get into the connected classrooms in which the 18-year-old perpetrator was holed up much earlier, but he was not allowed.
Ruiz wanted to save his wife, Eva Mireles, one of the two teachers killed, after receiving a call from her, Texas Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said at a hearing in the Texas Senate. However, the emergency services stopped and disarmed him.
Teacher said she was dying
“We have a cop, Officer Ruiz, whose wife called him and said she had been shot and was dying,” quotes the US broadcaster NBC the state’s chief law officer. “He then tried to move into the hallway. He was arrested and they took his gun and escorted him from the scene.”
Mireles was one of the two educators killed in the May 24 primary school massacre. The attacker also shot her colleague Irma Garcia and 19 students, most of whom were fourth graders. Ruben Ruiz is one of five members of the Uvalde school police force.
The couple’s daughter released a heartbreaking tribute after her mother’s death: “Mom, you are a hero. I keep telling myself this isn’t real. I just want to hear your voice,” she wrote on Facebook everything back. I want you to come back to me mom. I miss you more than words can say.”
Mireles’ cousin, Amber Ybarra, also named the teacher to NBC a “heroine” who “loved her work at the school and put her heart into everything she did”.
Ministry of Justice investigates crackdown in Uvalde
Whether Mireles and some of the children could have been saved if the emergency services had acted against the attacker sooner may never be clarified with certainty. But there are signs. So three children died according to the “New York Times” only in the hospital. And one of the teachers succumbed to her injuries in the ambulance. The newspaper does not report which of the two teachers killed it was.
The actions of local, state and federal agencies in the Uvalde massacre are under investigation by the US Department of Justice and the Texas Department of Public Safety. It is also the subject of a committee of inquiry in Congress in Austin.
Sources: NBC I, NBC II, Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, “New York Times”, KSAT.com