The chief law enforcement officer at the scene of the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde did not have a police radio when he arrived, minutes after the gunman entered the school, likely preventing 911 dispatchers from reaching him as children desperately dialed for help, according to a comprehensive timeline of the attack and reporting from a Texas elected official briefed on the investigation.
After two officers who arrived at the scene moments after gunman Salvador Ramos entered the school on 24 May, Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo ordered them to stand down, sparking a more than hourlong delay between Ramos’s entry and death. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed.
Last week, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw reported that Mr Arredondo wrongly determined that the lives of the students and staff inside the building were no longer at risk and treated the scene as one in which the subject was barricaded, not an active shooter.
New key details have revealed that critical messages from children inside the school were not relayed to the chief, while dozens of officers from more than a dozen law enforcement agencies were at the school for more than an hour after Ramos entered and began firing.
State Senator Roland Gutierrez told The Associated Press that the chief did not have a radio when he arrived at roughly 11.35am that day, minutes after Ramos entered Room 112 and began firing.
Minutes later, a lieutenant and a sergeant from the Uvalde Police Department were grazed by gunfire.
According to The New York Times, the chief then called a police department land line and requested a radio, a rifle and heavily armed officers, while directing officers to establish a perimeter and hold back against confronting the gunman – all within minutes after the gunman entered the building.
Police radios provide a critical point of contact between emergency communications to law enforcement. It is unclear how or whether any officers on the scene were aware of the 911 calls from inside the school.
Officers ultimately rejected the stand-down order and breached a classroom with Ramos inside, fatally shooting him around 1pm.
A timeline of 911 calls provided by law enforcement shows that at least nine calls were placed between the time Ramos arrived and his death.
Khloie Torres, a fourth-grade student who was in Room 112, told The New York Times that her teacher, Irma Garcia, rushed towards the door to lock it as the gunman approached. He grabbed the door and began firing, according to Khloie.
Shortly after noon, nearly 30 minutes after officers first arrived, she repeatedly called 911.
“There is a lot of bodies,” she told a dispatcher at 12.10pm, according to a transcript of the call reviewed by the newspaper. “I don’t want to die, my teacher is dead, my teacher is dead, please send help, send help for my teacher, she is shot but still alive.”
More gunshots can be heard on the call at about 12.21pm, according to Mr McCraw.
The Texas Deparment of Public Safety has referred questions about the investigation to District Attorney Christina Mitchell, who is coordinating the probe with the Texas Rangers. The Independent has requested comment from her office.
The US Department of Justice also has opened an investigation into the botched police response, facing international scrutiny as families of the victims and a grieving community demand answers after the killings of 19 children –all between the ages of 9 and 11 years old – and their two teachers.
Funerals and memorial services for the victims began this week and will continue through June.
