UVALDE, Texas – City of Uvalde officials on Saturday released a trove of public records from the 2022 shooting massacre at Robb Elementary School.
The release of officer body-worn camera footage, dash camera footage, emergency radio transmissions, 911 calls, and written records comes days after a district court judge ordered their release.
Uvalde County and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District were also named in the 2022 lawsuit filed by news organizations, including KSAT TV, seeking records from the police response to the school shooting, the deadliest in Texas history.
Nineteen students and two teachers were killed after a gunman entered classrooms with an AR-style rifle.
The May 2022 shooting was also the deadliest grade school shooting in the US since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.
County and school district officials this summer filed notices that they intend to appeal the judge’s ruling.
City of Uvalde officials had up to 20 days to make proper redactions and release the records, which were disseminated Saturday at noon, weeks before the court-ordered deadline.
A separate 2022 lawsuit filed by a group of news organizations, including KSAT TV, against the Texas Department of Public Safety remains pending.
A Travis County District Court judge last year ordered DPS to release records from its response to the school, but DPS officials quickly appealed the ruling.
Saturday release includes hundreds of radio transmissions
The release of information included body-worn camera footage from five Uvalde Police Department officers, dash camera footage, audio from close to 20 calls to 911, and hundreds of radio transmissions and non-emergency calls made that day in connection with the police response.
The release also included dozens of documents and text messages.
The materials have been redacted, consistent with rules set forth by the Texas Public Information Act.
A Texas House investigative report released in July 2022 revealed that 25 UPD officers were among the hundreds of law enforcement officials who descended on the elementary school during the response to the shooting.
Newly released body cam footage showed officers breaching classroom
Body-worn camera footage released by the City of Uvalde on Saturday provided the first glimpse of authorities breaching the classrooms of Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022.
Footage from the Uvalde Police Department didn’t provide new revelations into the massacre, but it did confirm with visual proof that officers waited in the hallways while dispatch received 911 calls about a gunman in the school.
The records included 12 videos from body-worn cameras of five Uvalde Police Department officers at the scene.
Footage from UPD Sgt. Daniel Coronado’s camera is the largest portion of the footage released — about two hours — and it captures the moment officers stormed the classroom at around 12:50 p.m. The gunman had entered the school around 11:33 a.m. and barricaded himself inside Classrooms 111 and 112.
“There’s a helicopter looking up there. Oh my God, please,” an officer says in Coronado’s footage just before officers entered the classroom and killed the shooter.
“They’re going in,” one officer said as the scene turned into chaos. Loud bangs from gunfire and shouting can then be heard on the video.
“Kids!” “EMT!” and “Bring me the children!” can be heard shouted by different officers.
“Where’s the suspect?” one officer asks. “He’s dead,” another responded.
Watch Coronado’s footage below:
Uvalde shooter’s uncle called 911 during massacre
Just before arriving at the school, the 18-year-old gunman shot and wounded his grandmother at her home. He then took a pickup from the home and drove to the school.
Ramos’ distraught uncle made several 911 calls begging to be put through so he could try to get his nephew to stop shooting.
“Maybe he could listen to me because he does listen to me, everything I tell him he does listen to me,” the man, who identified himself as Armando Ramos, said on the 911 call. “Maybe he could stand down or do something to turn himself in,” Ramos said, his voice cracking.
He said his nephew, who had been with him at his house the night before, stayed with him in his bedroom all night and told him that he was upset because his grandmother was “bugging” him.
“Oh my God, please, please, don’t do nothing stupid,” the man says on the call. “I think he’s shooting kids.”
But the offer arrived too late, coming just around the time that the shooting had ended and law enforcement officers killed Salvador Ramos.
Listen to the audio below:
Why KSAT is publishing the majority of the City of Uvalde’s footage, audio
KSAT has decided to publish most of the documentation we received to allow the public the opportunity to see what happened that day. The redactions in the documents, the blurring in the videos, and the editing of the audio were all done by the City of Uvalde and approved by the attorneys representing all of the media outlets. Out of respect to the families of the victims, KSAT has elected not to publish 911 calls from students inside the school.
While the video is difficult to watch and the audio difficult to hear, we made the decision to present everything to our audience as it was delivered to us. We believe the public has the right to know what happened that day.
A statement from Haynes Boone Media Law Chair Laura Prather, who is leading the litigation:
“We’re thankful the City of Uvalde is taking this step toward transparency. 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.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
