Some images from the Robb Elementary School surveillance video in Uvalde, Texas, tell stories that provoke anger and rage. Others give us pause.
About 4 minutes and 40 seconds into the video, after the gunman is seen walking down the hallway to the room where 19 children and two teachers were soon to die, a boy enters the hallway.
His face is blurred. His name has not been revealed.
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The boy peers around the corner and looks at the shooter, who is farther down the hall. He waits, looking at the only other person in the long, empty hallway.
The shooter did not appear to notice because as the boy was watching, the gunman was entering the classroom, firing the first shots of what are estimated to be over 100 rounds. The boy runs away.
did yall see the little boy who was in the hallway when the gunman entered Uvalde school?? How he saw him holding a gun and he ran to hide?? I want to hug him ?
— ?? (@renythemenace) July 14, 2022
You know who I can’t stop thinking about? The little boy who turned the corner when the Uvalde shooter was in the hallway and then ran. Like god, how different it would be if he had turned that corner even 10 seconds sooner.
— kayla “rewind” phaneuf (@kaylaphaneuf) July 14, 2022
Gunfire continues after the boy runs away. About three minutes later, police respond.
The video also has images that needed context.
Around 8 minutes and 30 seconds into the video, one of the police officers checks his phone. That gesture brought condemnation until the full story was told.
“This really makes my blood boil,” Terrance Carroll, a former speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, commented in a since-deleted tweet, according to the Texas Tribune. “This officer is checking his phone while kids & teachers are literally dying a few doors down.”
The abuse prompted Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody to explain the circumstances surrounding officer Ruben Ruiz, whose wife, teacher Eva Mireles, was one of the teachers killed that day.
Mireles called her husband to tell him she had been shot. Ruiz was eventually escorted from the scene. Mireles lived long enough to be rescued from the school, but she died being transported to the hospital.
Leaked surveillance of law enforcement responding to the Uvalde shooting was released Tuesday showing an officer glancing at his phone. The officer depicted was Ruben Ruiz, whose wife had just been shot inside one of the classrooms with the gunman.https://t.co/pbvbqIPJOt
— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) July 14, 2022
I know that Officer Ruiz deserves an apology from me for thinking the absolute worst of him. He’s the only cop involved at Uvalde I think deserves a pass.
— Stevia Plath ? (@girl_recovery) July 16, 2022
“I couldn’t say nothing seeing this man, who’s lost everything, maligned as if he was indifferent or actively malicious,” Moody said in a Twitter thread. “Context matters. To those who haven’t bothered to read even the news that’s been reported in your rush to judgment, he attempted to engage but was removed from the building and disarmed. We’ll have much to say about the police response, but no criticism of this officer.”
Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, further explained the situation in testimony before a Texas state Senate committee, according to ABC.
“We’ve got an officer, Officer Ruiz, whose wife called in and said she’d been shot and she was dying,” McCraw said. “What happened to him was he tried to move forward in the hallway. He was detained, and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
