What has cast a further pall over Uvalde, Texas, is an acknowledged catastrophic failure by law enforcement not to immediately storm adjoining classrooms that an armed gunman had transformed into a killing field, despite pleas from students and parents.
Like any campus approaching the end of a school year, Robb Elementary was abuzz with excitement and anticipation.
Until Tuesday, Uvalde’s brush with the national spotlight was largely confined to its most famous resident: John Nance ‘Cactus Jack’ Garner, a one-time Speaker of the House and vice president to Franklin Roosevelt whose resting place is not far from a ribbon of Highway 90 that cuts a well-traveled path between San Antonio and the Mexican border.
Instead, Texas Department of Public Safety chief Steven McCraw said Friday that the local school district's police chief — who had been the on-scene commander during the shooting — waited on reinforcements for more than an hour, a decision that may have cost more young lives and now threatens to fracture public confidence in law enforcement's capacity to guard the community's most vulnerable.
“She was a real happy little girl, always laughing and smiling and playing around,” her grandfather, Alfred Garcia II, told USA TODAY. On Tuesday, after a quick breakfast, she grabbed her new cellphone – a gift for her recent birthday – and got a ride to school from her stepdad on his way to work. “Like always, she asked me for a dollar to get snacks at lunch,” Garza said. “And to turn down the radio. I’m always jamming out, and she gets so embarrassed. So she turned it down to zero before getting out of the car.”
What would set the incident apart, Trinidad learned, was the sudden appeal for help uttered by Celia Gonzales, Ramos' 66-year-old grandmother and a former teacher's aide. Indeed, Abbott later described the gunman as"pure evil," revealing that Ramos had declared his intentions in a chilling series of private social media messages:"I'm going to shoot an elementary school."
The DPS official said Ramos first fired on two bystanders looking on from a nearby funeral home before he scaled a fence on the perimeter of the school property. The DPS official said Ramos, whose motive remains unknown, eventually made his way to adjoining classrooms in the building. He ultimately confronted his victims, discharging more than 100 rounds.As word spread that law enforcement officers were converging on the campus, one source of information for anxious parents and family members were the periodic posts on the Robb Elementary Facebook page that didn’t come close to relaying the horror already underway inside.
At 12:10 p.m., the child called back to report that multiple people were dead. Six minutes later, the caller reported that eight to nine people were still alive. After five or 10 minutes at the school, Cazares said he heard gunshots from inside the building. He estimated another 10 or 20 minutes passed before all tactical officers arrived.Amerie’s parents didn't need to get the Facebook alerts to know something was amiss.
When he didn't answer, Kimberly Garcia called his boss, who intruded on Garza and his patient. “Something is wrong,” the supervisor said, pulling him out of the room. “There were multiple kids coming out, blood on them. And there was one little girl who was head to toe just covered in blood,” Garza said. “She looked like she was sitting in a tub of blood. She had plasma on her head. I thought she was really hurt. She was hysterical.”But the girl sitting next to her was injured and distraught.“She's not breathing. She was just trying to call 911. And now she's dead.”“There's 400 kids in that class," he said.
Garcia had heard rumors that his daughter — his only child — was injured, perhaps mortally. All he could think of, he said, was to try and find her, wherever she was.As calls went out for reinforcements, an estimated 80 Customs and Border Patrol agents were among those who responded to Robb Elementary, including specialized units representing the The Border Patrol Tactical Unit , and the Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue team .
When the reinforcements arrived, officials said, four agents from the elite border units were part of the team that eventually moved in to take out the gunman. "You can’t hunt with it due to the damage it causes to flesh," he told USA TODAY."I wish I couldn’t imagine what the wounds look like. But it is the stuff of nightmares. Movies never show the real carnage."With no word coming from the police or the Texas Rangers, Amerie’s family mounted an increasingly frantic search for her.
Through the afternoon following the shooting, the family believed that Amerie might still be alive and receiving treatment somewhere.“He remembered seeing her and said she got hurt, but she's alive," Garcia said. "And so we were thinking, okay, she's going to make it. She's going to be at the hospital. Maybe the bullet grazed her and she wasn't injured that bad.”
During their fraught search, the family also learned from survivors — especially the girl covered in blood that talked to Garza — that Amerie was shot while trying to call 911. They don't think her call went through.
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