UVALDE, Texas — We’re finally getting more answers about the law enforcement response to the deadly 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. It was a shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
A coalition of news organizations sued the City of Uvalde in August 2022 for access to previously-withheld documents, video, 911 calls and more that would help victims’ families know what information law enforcement had that day and what actions they took. The city settled with the media coalition and access to the information was granted.
The coalition included several news organizations, including TEGNA stations WFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth, KHOU 11 in Houston, KENS 5 in San Antonio, KVUE in Austin, KCEN in Waco, KBMT in Beaumont, KYTX in Tyler, KIII in Corpus Christi, KWES in Midland-Odessa, KIDY/KXVA in Abilene-San Angelo and KAGS in College Station.
The public records the coalition was suing for were made accessible at noon on Saturday and we are currently going through what was released. We will post updates on this page throughout the day. We want to be sensitive to the families affected by this tragedy, so we are going to thoroughly inspect anything before we post.
"We’re thankful the City of Uvalde is taking this step toward transparency," said Haynes Boone Media Law Chair and Partner Laura Prather. "For more than two years, our Haynes Boone team has fought for the release of records related to the tragic mass shooting at Robb Elementary. We’re still waiting on Uvalde CISD, Uvalde County and Texas DPS to release dozens of interviews, hundreds of body camera videos and thousands of investigative files. Transparency is necessary to help Uvalde heal and allow us all to understand what happened and learn how to prevent future tragedies."
This lawsuit is separate from the suit the coalition filed against the Department of Public Safety. In that case, a judge ruled that the contents must be released, but that legal process is still playing out.
Public records released on Saturday
The files that were released were 911 calls, dashcam video, text messages, bodycam, radio traffic, documents and more. We're posting information from those below as we review.
911 calls
Two calls came from teachers elsewhere in the hallway (rooms 102 and 116). The calls come from both inside and outside the school. Several callers reported a gunman either moving toward or entering into the school as early as 11:30 a.m., according to time stamps on the audio files.
-- The 911 calls show the dire situation unfolding in the moments as the shooting inside the school started. Multiple callers were shouting and crying for help, including one who said, 'He's inside the school! Oh my God in the name of Jesus, he's inside the school shooting at the kids."
-- In one of the calls from inside the school, an adult from inside a classroom begged 911 dispatchers to "hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry."
-- Editor's note (8/12): In a previous version of this story, we noted that none of the new 911 calls appeared to come from the rooms where the shootings took place. We've continued to go through the public records released Saturday and have found that there were, in fact, calls from the rooms where the shootings took place. We are reviewing those now.
-- The 911 calls also came from a man who identified himself as the shooter's uncle at 12:57 p.m. He expressed a desire to try to reach his nephew, saying that he often would listen to him. A SWAT Team had breached the classroom and killed the gunman about five minutes earlier. The man who identified himself as the uncle called back two additional times, each time asking to be allowed to talk to his nephew to "talk him down." A dispatcher told him an officer would come get him, and not to come to the school on his own.
You can hear part of the 911 call from the uncle here.
-- One of the calls was from the teacher in room 116 in the same hallway as the rooms where the shooting occurred (Rooms 111, 112). The teacher reports she does not have children in her classroom.
Radio traffic
-- Radio traffic also noted the uncle's call. “Sir, I have the shooter’s uncle on 911, he’s requesting to assist to try and talk him down,” Later radio traffic: “That uncle, do me a favor, send him to the back of the funeral home, we have command set up here.”
Documents
-- The documents showed how quickly the shooting became an international story. Then-Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin received emails from a variety of news outlets in the U.S. and abroad requesting information and interviews about the incident. McLaughlin also received an email mere hours after the shooting from officials in Orlando offering their condolences and assistance.
-- McLaughlin also received messages of support. Mere hours after the shooting, officials in Orlando offered their assistance, as well as the mayor of Parkland, Florida. A staff member from Sen. John Cornyn’s office emailed McLaughlin at 1:37 p.m. to share their condolences, as did a Texas family that offered to organize a fundraising effort.
-- The day after the shooting, after Beto O’Rourke interrupted a news conference with McLaughlin and state leaders in which the former mayor told O’Rourke he was “out of line” and asked him to leave, the mayor’s office began receiving criticism for accusing O’Rourke of making the shooting a political issue.
-- In an incident report included in the release from Sgt. Bobby Ruiz of the Uvalde Police Department, Ruiz detailed his experience in being asked to leave the Robb Elementary Campus in order to secure the residence where the "the incident possibly began." Upon arriving at the scene, later determined to be the house where the shooter lived with his grandparents and shot his grandmother in the face, Ruiz said he heard a female on the scene express concern over the grandmother's well-being. Later, he said he heard another woman he could not identify say that she was related to the shooter, and that she "had been up with him last night due to [him] wanting to commit suicide."
Bodycam video
-- Officer Justin Mendoza's bodycam shows an exterior shot of Room 116, which is where one of the 911 calls came from. It's where the big group of officers staged right under the surveillance camera at the T in the hallway.
-- In Uvalde Police Sgt. Eduardo Canales' bodycam, officers approach the door of Room 112 and one shouts out "Watch that door.” Four shots then ring out, and Canales believes he’s hit: “Am I bleeding…He got me right. He’s in the class…We’ve got to get in there.” He later finds out he got hit with shrapnel to his ear: “I’m bleeding from my ear…The guy is actually shooting. Robb School.”
-- Audio heard in Uvalde Police Sgt. Daniel Coronado bodycam: "He's not talking. He's shot 40 or 50 rounds at least....He has an AR...Chief is making contact with him, right? No, No one is making contact with him."
-- Also from Coronado's bodycam, Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo can be heard saying: "Tell them to [expletive] wait. No one goes in." Minutes later, Arredondo can be heard saying: “Let me know when that room is clear...I'd like to get to that window. I think we should flashbang that window and then go in.”
-- As the officers continue to wait, Chief Arredondo can be further heard on Coronado's cam trying to find a master key to open what he believes is a locked classroom door: “Man, these master keys aren't working here…We need a master key first. None of these work...We need breacher.” Adds Coronado: “[Expletive] we don't have a key...He probably has it barricaded anyway.” As the minutes continue to tick away, he continues: “We need a distraction for sure. If we get a key, it will take a second to open that door. I say they need to breach through the windows and shoot the head off through the windows.” Adds the chief: “If you can get a sniper on the rooftop...But we got to get that door open.”
-- Officers on Coronado's cam fear the shooter has disappeared. Coronado says at one point: “Keep an eye up onto the roof. He might have climbed up in the ceiling…There’s a helicopter looking up there.” Adds Chief Arredondo: “Complete surround…I don’t know what’s going on. The door’s open, but I don’t want the [expletive] to climb up the roof and go out somewhere…Okay.” Seconds later, Coronado can be heard saying: “Something’s burning. Is it the flashbang?”
-- Later, the officers on Coronado's bodycam can be seen breaching the classroom with a series of shots. They can be heard shouting: “Watch the kids! Get the kids out!” Says Coronado: “Bring me the children.” Other officers can be heard shouting at one another: "Where’s the suspect?" "He’s dead." "Get the kids. There’s more kids over here…Come on…Get a line for the kids."
Non-emergency calls
-- In a call between a dispatcher and what appears to be a police officer, the dispatcher said she had earlier taken a call from someone identifying himself as the uncle of the shooter. The dispatcher said the uncle wanted to come to the scene to talk him down. The dispatcher said they asked the uncle if the shooter had any issues lately, and the uncle said “He was gripey about was that his grandmother was always getting after him [unintelligible]. They told him you have to understand, mijo, that’s the way it is, but they didn’t notice any behavioral changes in him within the past few days.”
Emails
Mayor Don McLaughlin's emails
Also released Saturday were more than 1,300 pages of emails sent to Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin on the day of the shootings and afterward. He initially received dozens of media interview requests and offers to provide assistance, including one from the former mayor of Parkland, Florida.
"I understand the trauma and challenges you and your community are facing now and in the upcoming weeks," said Christine Hunschofsky, who's currently a member of the Florida House of Representatives. "I am here to support you and your community in any way I can."
A resident of Newtown, Conn., wrote to him to provide advice on how to manage the days and weeks that would follow, including leaning on the interfaith community for healing, separating the investigation from the community's grieving process and finding an equitable way to distribute donations. McLaughlin replied with thanks and forwarded the note to several members of city and county government.
After McLaughlin appeared at a news conference with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and subsequently confronted then-Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke, calling him a "sick son of a b----," the tone of the emails changed.
"Your behavior on television was horrible and disgusting," one writer said, while another asked him: "Did you actually think saying that would endear your political supporters? Is this how you interact with constituents who disagree with you?"
Timeline per Uvalde PD call report
- 11:30:00 a.m.: White male subject with gun called in
- 11:30:32 a.m.: Heard several shots fired
- 11:31:23 a.m.: Adv to shut down school
- 11:31:33 a.m.: Kids running from campus
- 11:31:54 a.m.: Contacted school PD
- 11:32:07 a.m.: Caller adv male subject into school
- 11:32:21 a.m.: Shots fired Robb School
- 11:32:39 a.m.: Male subj on Gerladine St behind school
- 11:32:44 a.m.: Units 10-60
- 11:33:12 a.m.: Male subj near the school in the back
- 11:33:19 a.m.: Male subj wearing all black
- 11:33:45 a.m.: Caller stated went inside the bldg.
- 11:34:09 a.m.: Callers stated male subj shooting inside the school
- 11:35:25 a.m.: Women shot in the head on Diaz ST
- 11:36:07 a.m.: adv shots fired inside the bldg.
- 11:37:38 a.m.: Uvalde Fire to assist
- 11:38:03 a.m.: Shots still being fired across from funeral home
- 11:38:11 a.m.: Adv to active SWAT
- 11:38:19 a.m.: male subj inside the bldg. contained
- 11:38:49 a.m.: Possible officer shot
- 11:39:03 a.m.: Geraline ST / Grover officer down
- 11:39:14 a.m.: EMS notified
- 11:41:20 a.m.: Another possibly shot injury across RM 102
- 11:41:21 a.m.: Female Martinez in Room 116 barricaded in closet
- 11:42:49 a.m.: Req status on Mireles classroom
- 11:43:05 a.m.: Req for SWAT by funeral; shooter got rifle
- 11:43:57 a.m.: Kinney County adv sending deputies to location
- 11:47:34 a.m.: Adv suspect been seen in classroom
- 11:48:47 a.m.: adv multiple injuries on scene families arriving
- 11:49:13 a.m.: airlife on standby
- 11:54:02 a.m.: RM 103 and RM 104 15 individuals
- 11:57:27 a.m.: Req for more EMS units
- 11:58:48 a.m.: Adv kids coming out of bldg.
- 12:02:46 p.m.: Adv Salvador Ramos
- 12:06:19 p.m.: Officer Suarez needs EMS to funeral home Perez St., have kids in room in funeral home
- 12:10:45 p.m.: Have female classroom 112 adv there are multiple dead bodies
- 12:12:22 p.m.: Student in Rm 112 adv of multiple bodies possibly DOA/injury
- 12:14:31 p.m.: Adv one backpack found 30 magazines found
- 12:21:24 p.m.: Can hear active shoots 3 shots fired
- 12:24:15 p.m.: Adv more kids exiting the bldg.
- 12:31:05 p.m.: SAPD SWAT in 30 mins; 2 DPS helicopters
- 12:38:20 p.m.: Will need more EMS
- 12:46:17 p.m.: DPS SWAT arrived location SE corner of the campus
- 12:47:45 p.m.: Adv units making entry
- 12:48:39 p.m.: Adv male subj might’ve climbed the ceiling to the roof
- 12:51:32 p.m.: Adv shots fired
- 12:58:48 p.m.: Armando Ramos adv his nephew is the shooter
- 12:59:27 p.m.: Uncle adv that male subj was at his house, went to Dad’s room stayed there all night
- 12:59:54 p.m.: Uncle stated no change in behavior the past couple of days
- 1:02:42 p.m.: Adv shooter male subj detained and in custody
- 1:02:47 p.m.: Adv scene is safe
- 1:04:14 p.m.: Adv multiple deceased multiple injured EMS working on patients scene is secured; shooter is deceased
- 1:18:14 p.m.: Adv no more EMS units will be needed