Video Shows Police Were Inside Uvalde School With Ballistic Shields And Rifles But Waited An Hour to Engage Shooter

BREAKING: Multiple officers were inside Robb Elementary School with rifles and at least one ballistic shield at 11:52 a.m. the day of the shooting, new video and other evidence shows. They didn’t enter the classroom for another 58 minutes. More soon via @statesman and @KVUE. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/0BcYgq2hcQ

— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) June 20, 2022

Investigators believe this is significant because it indicates they had more than enough firepower and protection to enter the classroom before they did. Officers were growing impatient far sooner: “If there’s kids in there we need to go in there,” one said on body camera video.

— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) June 20, 2022

Multiple police officers stood in a hallway at Robb Elementary School armed with rifles and at least one ballistic shield within 19 minutes of a gunman arriving at the campus, according to documents reviewed by the American-Statesman, a devastating new revelation deepening questions about why police didn’t act faster to stop the shooter who killed 19 children and two teachers last month.

Even as officers with high-powered weapons and ballistic shields massed inside the blue and green hallway, the gunman could be heard firing rounds — including at 12:21 p.m., 29 minutes before officers entered the classroom and killed him.

Investigators say the latest information indicates officers had more than enough firepower and protection to take down the gunman long before they finally did.

At 11:33 a.m. on May 24, he walked into Robb Elementary’s northwest entrance and headed south toward the two classrooms on the left side, randomly firing shots from his rifle in the hallway. He had crashed his car and fired some shots outside, so the school was already on lockdown at that point and the hallways were nearly empty. No one was hit, but a boy could be seen peeking around the corner at the northeast end of the hallway, apparently trying to return to class from a nearby bathroom. The boy heard the gunfire and ran away. (DPS confirmed that he escaped without physical injury.)

Within a minute, the shooter entered classroom 111 — he didn’t appear to encounter a locked door in the footage — and began shooting. He briefly walked out the classroom door and then went back in, shooting some more. For the next three minutes, he fired frequently inside a classroom filled with children.

During that burst of gunfire, the first three officers entered the school: two from the Uvalde Police Department and one from the school district’s force. All were carrying handguns.

Moments later, Arredondo and seven more officers arrived. The shooter opened fire at the first three officers closest to the two classrooms, grazing two and forcing all the officers to bolt to either end of the hallway. Those officers, including Arredondo, remained in these positions for the rest of the standoff, never firing a shot.