Texas DPS says Uvalde school shooter was not one of students arrested for 2018 threat
The Texas Department of Public Safety shut down claims that the 18-year-old gunman who killed 19 students and two teachers Tuesday at a Southwest Texas elementary school was previously arrested for threats against a Uvalde school.
Early Friday morning, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, said he had asked authorities to look into a claim that school shooter Salvador Ramos was arrested in 2018 for threatening to shoot up a school, according to the Daily Beast.
“This wasn’t hearsay. I got this late last night: ‘The shooter was arrested years ago, four years ago, for having this plan for basically saying, for saying, you know, when I’m a senior in 2022, I am going to shoot up a school,’” the Daily Beast reported that Gonzales told Fox News. “Something fell between the cracks between then and now to allow this to happen. We need to shake out all the facts.”
In a news conference later Friday, DPS Director Steven C. McCraw shut down the allegations, saying that although the 2018 incident did occur, the threats were made by different students who said they planned to attack a school in their senior year.
“He was not one of the individuals, in fact, we have found no links or associated relationships in that investigation,” McCraw said, adding that two juveniles, who were 13 and 14 years old at the time of the incident, were charged with conspiracy to commit capital murder.
“There’s no question that we thought — we had evidence, and certainly the district attorney agreed — that these juveniles … were a threat to Uvalde and there was a discussion at that time that the senior year – of the one that was 14 years old – would make it 2022. However, it was not [Ramos].”
Police response to Uvalde shooting
At Friday’s news conference, McCraw also offered a new timeline of the shooting at Robb Elementary School, after law enforcement officials backtracked on previous statements about police response to the mass shooting.
Students trapped in a classroom with the gunman repeatedly called 911 as nearly 20 officers waited in the hallway for more than 45 minutes, authorities said Friday, according to the Associated Press.
The commander at the scene — the school district’s police chief — believed that Ramos was barricaded inside two adjoining classrooms and that children were no longer at risk, McCraw said at the news conference.
“It was the wrong decision,” he said.
Here’s is the timeline McCraw gave Friday:
11:27 a.m. - Video footage shows a teacher at Robb Elementary propping open an exterior door. Ramos reportedly entered through this door.
11:28 a.m. - Ramos’ vehicle crashes near the school. A teacher ran back to a classroom to get a phone and left the door open. Two men, at a nearby funeral home, made their way to the crash scene where they saw Ramos exit the vehicle from the passenger side with a gun and backpack. The witnesses reportedly began running and Ramos tried shooting at them.
11:30 a.m. - 911 receives a phone call that there was a man who crashed his vehicle and has a gun.
11:31 a.m. - Ramos “reaches the last row of vehicles in the school parking lot,” McCraw said. The 18-year-old began shooting at the school, while police responded to the funeral home. McCraw adds that previous statements that officers confronted Ramos were inaccurate, and that an officer who heard the 911 call “drove immediately to the area he thought was the man with the gun, to the back of the school, which turned out to be a teacher.” McCraw said the officer drove by the suspect, who was “hunkered down behind a vehicle.”
11:32 a.m. - Ramos fires multiple shots at the school from outside, then enters the building.
11:33 a.m. - Ramos begins shooting in a classroom. McCraw says audio evidence from video footage shows Ramos shooting over 100 rounds.
11:35 a.m. - Three officers enter the school through the same doors that Ramos reportedly entered. Later, four more officers joined. The initial three officers were shot at, and some were grazed by bullets. Ramos shut the door to the classroom.
11:37 a.m. - Over 16 rounds are fired.
11:51 a.m. - More police begin to arrive.
12:03 p.m. - As many as 19 police officers were in the hallway outside the classroom. McCraw said they believed the active shooter situation had transitioned into a barricaded person call. A female caller dialed 911 from the classroom. The length of the call was less than 90 seconds. She said her name and said she was in classroom 112.
12:10 p.m. - The caller tells 911 that multiple people were dead.
12:13 p.m. - The female calls 911 again.
12:15 p.m. - More technicians arrive with shields.
12:16 p.m. - Female calls 911 again, adding that eight to nine students are still alive.
12:19 p.m. - Another person, in room 111 called 911. “She hung up when another student told her to hang up,” McCraw said.
12:21 p.m. - Suspect fires more shots at the door. Law enforcement moved down the hallway. A 911 call also captured three shots being fired.
12:36 p.m. - Another 911 call lasted for 21 seconds. The caller, a student, stayed on the line quietly. “She told 911 that he shot the door,” McCraw said, adding that the student asked 911 to “please send the police now.”
12:46 p.m. - Student tells 911 she can hear police next door.
12:50 p.m. - Officers breach the door using keys obtained from a janitor and kill the suspect.
12:51 p.m. - The 911 call was “loud” and “sounded like officers were moving children out of the room,” McCraw said.
This story was originally published May 27, 2022 at 1:26 PM with the headline "Texas DPS says Uvalde school shooter was not one of students arrested for 2018 threat."
