Uvalde School Shooting: Emergency calls and text messages released two years after massacre

CNN
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More than two years after the deadly massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the city on Saturday released bodycam and dashcam videos, audio recordings of 911 calls and radio conversations, and documents and text messages related to the shooting.

CNN had already reported on most of the material released, but the files – some of which were redacted – were only released after CNN and more than a dozen other major news outlets filed suit seeking public records about the massacre.

In one of the 911 calls, first reported by CNN in the months after the shooting, a 10-year-old girl trapped in a classroom told police dispatchers to “hurry up” because there were “a lot of bodies.”

The Robb Elementary School massacre left 19 children and two teachers dead. It is one of the deadliest elementary school shootings in the United States. Police were heavily criticized for their failure to intervene in the May 2022 incident. While the victims lay injured, it took the 376 police officers on the scene 77 minutes to confront and kill the gunman after he entered the school through an unlocked door. More than 90 Texas Department of Public Safety officers were at the scene and were among the first to arrive.

Among the hundreds of pages of text messages released Saturday are a series of messages in which a group of police officers expressed fear for their safety in the hours and days following the massacre, amid growing public anger and nationwide questions about why the victims were left with the gunman for more than an hour.

In the text messages, several officers requested that their photos be removed from the department's website because they felt they were being blamed for the failed intervention.

In a group chat it is mentioned: “The DPS director has just [sic] everyone under the bus..!!!” – referring to the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

“For our safety, is there a way to remove our pictures from the police website? … Take the website offline,” one officer wrote.

In another text message, a concerned officer asks if his department's Nixle account – a communications system that connects residents with public safety agencies – can be deactivated, to which the police chief responds, “There is already a work order for that.”

The police chief also writes: “Employees are asking if we can remove their photos from our Facebook page.” He adds: “Operations management is concerned.”

In another group chat, officers remind each other to rest and take care of each other.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” asks one officer. “Rest and relax,” replies another. “That's impossible,” replies the first officer. “I feel useless at home,” adds the officer.

In a press conference after the mass shooting, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said the incident commander made the wrong decision and did not try to enter the classroom where the shooter was quickly enough. He later said the first police officers on the scene, including local Uvalde police seen in the newly released text messages, acted against school shooting training by initially retreating and never regaining momentum to take out the shooter.

CNN reached out to the Texas Department of Public Safety on Saturday for a response to the officials' statements.

The victims' families are angry that it took so long for law enforcement to release the documents to the public.

Brett Cross's nephew, Uziyah Garcia, 10, was killed in the massacre on May 22. Cross told The Associated Press that families were not informed in advance of the release of the documents on Saturday, but said it was long overdue.

“If we thought we could get everything we want, we would ask for a time machine to go back in time and save our children, but we can't. So all we ask for is justice, accountability and transparency and they refuse to give us that,” Cross said.

Jesse Rizo, the uncle of 9-year-old Jacklyn Cazares, who was also killed in the shooting, said the release of the documents reignited anger because they showed how long law enforcement waited. “Maybe if they had intervened sooner, they could have saved some lives, including my niece's,” he told the Associated Press.

In an interview this week, former Uvalde School Police Chief Pete Arredondo told CNN he felt “scapegoated from the beginning.” Arredondo was indicted by a grand jury in June and charged with 10 counts of child endangerment and admitted criminal negligence for failing to recognize the incident as an active shooting and failing to intervene appropriately.

As CNN previously reported, he pleaded not guilty to those charges last month.

Former school police officer Adrian Gonzales was also charged with criminal charges related to the police's lack of response to the shooting. Gonzales pleaded not guilty on July 25.