UVALDE, Texas (AP) — An exterior door at Robb Elementary School was left unlocked when a teacher locked it shortly before a gunman used it to enter and kill 19 students and two teachersleaving investigators searching to determine why, state police said Tuesday.
State police initially said a teacher had opened the door shortly before Salvador Ramos, 18, entered the school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.
They have now determined that the teacher, who has not been identified, opened the door with a rock but then removed the rock and closed the door when she realized there was a shooter on campus, said Travis Considine, communications director for the school. Texas Department of Public Safety. But, Considine said, the door did not close.
“We verified that he closed the door. The door didn’t lock. We know a lot and now investigators are looking into why it wasn’t blocked,” Considine said.
Investigators confirmed the details through additional video footage reviewed from last Friday’s news conference when authorities first said the door had been left open. Authorities did not say at the time what had been used to open the door.
Considine said the teacher initially answered the door but ran inside to grab her phone and call 911 when Ramos crashed his truck on campus.
“He came back while on the phone, heard someone yell, ‘He’s got a gun!’ saw him jump the fence and he had a gun, so he ran inside,” he removed the stone when he did. Considine said.
San Antonio attorney Don Flanary told the San Antonio Express-News that the Robb Elementary School employee, whom he did not name, locked the door after realizing a gunman was on the loose. He had initially left it open to carry food from a car to a classroom, the attorney said.
“He kicked the stone when he went back inside. He remembers closing the door while she was telling 911 that he was shooting,” Flanary told the newspaper.
“She thought the door would close because that door is always supposed to be closed,” Flanary said.
Flanary did not immediately return phone messages left at his office by The Associated Press.
Investigators are also trying to interview Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who state police say was the scene commander of the school shooting as it occurred.
Steven McCraw, chief of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Arredondo treated the active scene as a hostage situation and as if the children were no longer at risk, while 19 police officers waited in the school hallway outside the classroom. Where was Ramos?
McCraw called that a “wrong decision,” saying the focus of the investigation has shifted to Arredondo and the police response.
Other officers from city police departments and Uvalde schools continue to show up for interviews and provide statements, but Arredondo has not responded to DPS requests for two days, Considine said.
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