Uvalde officials release bodycam footage from Robb Elementary shooting

Officials in Uvalde, Texas have released police body camera footage and a collection of audio and video recordings of the deadly mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in 2022.

The footage release comes after the Associated Press and other news organizations brought a lawsuit against the city because officials initially refused to publicly release information from the shooting, which left 19 students and two teachers dead.

One of the first calls that police received that day was from a woman who reported a truck crashed into a ditch and a person was running onto the school’s campus, the AP reported.

“Oh my god, they have a gun,” she told police.

A few minutes later, a man calls to say, “He’s shooting at the kids! Get back!” He informed police that the 18-year-old gunman was inside the school.

“Oh my God in the name of Jesus. He’s inside the school shooting at the kids,” he said.

According to the body camera footage from police, an officer asks the gunman to “please don’t hurt anyone else” and to put his gun down. It showed blood on the floors in hallways and classrooms.

Law enforcement’s response was sharply criticized after the shooting.

A scathing report by the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that a lack of preparation, communication and urgency resulted in nearly 400 members of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies standing outside the school for 77 minutes while the gunman was inside.

The gunman, Salvador Ramos, shot his grandmother at her home before taking a truck to the school. His uncle made several 911 calls hoping to be put through to his nephew to beg him to stop, the AP reported.

“Maybe he could listen to me because he does listen to me, everything I tell him he does listen to me,” Ramos’s uncle said on the call. “Maybe he could stand down or do something to turn himself in.”

The outlet noted that the call came too late, after police fatally killed Ramos.

In the body camera footage, published to YouTube by KSAT 12, officers pull children from the school windows and one says “Thank you.” Officers tell them to hurry out, saying, “We got you.”

Families of the victims renewed their calls for police officers to face charges after the DOJ report cited unnecessary deaths, as officers detained parents who attempted to enter the school but did not go in themselves.

Earlier this week, the Texas Department of Public Safety reinstated a state trooper, Steven McCraw, who was suspended after the shooting.

McCraw said the officer in command on the scene of the shooting believed that the situation had shifted from an active shooter situation to a barricade situation and children were no longer in danger.

Only two other officers face criminal charges. Both have pleaded not guilty.

The City of Uvalde said it is “fulfilling its responsibility” to make the records public in “the interest of serving taxpayers, the Uvalde community” and compliance with the Public Information Act. 

The records have been “appropriately redacted” in accordance with state law and to “conclude this lawsuit.” 

“The City is exercising careful diligence to protect privacy rights and to comply with the Court’s Order,” the City of Uvalde said in a statement to The Hill. 

Updated at 10:43 am on Aug. 20.