Onlookers urged officers to charge into Texas school
UVALDE, Texas — Onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, a witness said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upward of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.
“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.
Minutes earlier, Carranza had watched as Salvador Ramos crashed his truck into a ditch outside the school, grabbed his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and shot at two people outside a nearby funeral home who ran away uninjured.
He then exchanged fire with a school district security officer, ran inside and fired on two arriving Uvalde police officers who were outside the building, said Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Travis Considine. All the law enforcement officers were injured, he said.
Ramos charged into one classroom and began to kill, a law enforcement official said.
He “barricaded himself by locking the door and just started shooting children and teachers that were inside that classroom,” Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Department of Public Safety told CNN.
Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said it was “within 40 minutes or so” from when Ramos opened fire on the school security officer and when the SWAT-like Border Patrol team shot him.
O’Rourke interrupts briefing, says Abbott ‘doing nothing’
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was wrapping up his opening remarks about the killing of school children and teachers in Uvalde, Texas, when Beto O’Rourke strode forward from his seat in the audience.
“Gov. Abbott, I have something to say,” the Democrat challenging Abbott for governor this fall said Wednesday, pointing a finger at his rival. “The time to stop the next shooting is right now, and you are doing nothing.”
A mix of boos and cheers rose up from the crowd as the former congressman and 2020 presidential candidate briefly spoke, then was escorted from the room. Sen. Ted Cruz, standing behind Abbott, shook his head and said “sit down!” while one woman in the crowd chanted, “Let him speak.” Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin yelled that O’Rourke was a “sick son of a b----.”