Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman鈥檚 rampage killed , witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.
鈥淕o in there! Go in there!鈥� nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the close-knit town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.
Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about , arriving while police were still gathered outside the building.
Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders.
鈥淟et鈥檚 just rush in because the cops aren鈥檛 doing anything like they are supposed to,鈥� he said. 鈥淢ore could have been done.鈥�
鈥淭hey were unprepared,鈥� he added.
Minutes earlier, Carranza had watched as Salvador Ramos crashed his truck into a ditch outside the school, grabbed his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and shot at two people outside a nearby funeral home who ran away uninjured.
Officials say he 鈥渆ncountered鈥� a school district security officer outside the school, though there were conflicting reports from authorities on whether the men exchanged gunfire. After running inside, he fired on two arriving Uvalde police officers who were outside the building, said Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Travis Considine. The police officers were injured.
After entering the school, Ramos charged into one classroom and began to kill.
He 鈥渂arricaded himself by locking the door and just started shooting children and teachers that were inside that classroom,鈥� Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Department of Public Safety told CNN. 鈥淚t just shows you the complete evil of the shooter.鈥�
All those killed were in the same classroom, he said.
Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw told reporters that 40 minutes to an hour elapsed from when Ramos opened fire on the school security officer to when the tactical team shot him, though a department spokesman said later that they could not give a solid estimate of how long the gunman was in the school or when he was killed.
鈥淭he bottom line is law enforcement was there,鈥� McCraw said. 鈥淭hey did engage immediately. They did contain (Ramos) in the classroom.鈥�
Meanwhile, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said the Border Patrol agents had trouble breaching the classroom door and had to get a staff member to open the room with a key. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation.
Carranza said the officers should have entered the school sooner.
鈥淭here were more of them. There was just one of him,鈥� he said.
Uvalde is a largely Latino town of some 16,000 people about 75 miles (120 kilometers) from the Mexican border. Robb Elementary, which has nearly 600 students in second, third and fourth grades, is a single-story brick structure in a mostly residential neighborhood of modest homes.
Hundreds packed into bleachers at the town鈥檚 fairgrounds for a vigil Wednesday and the crowd swelled so big some stood around the speakers on the dirt arena. Some cried. Some closed their eyes tight, mouthing silent prayers. Parents wrapped their arms around their children, as the speakers lead prayers for healing.
Before attacking the school, Ramos shot and wounded his grandmother at the home they shared, authorities said.
Neighbor Gilbert Gallegos, 82, who lives across the street and has known the family for decades, said he was puttering in his yard when he heard the shots.
Ramos ran out the front door and across the small yard to the truck parked in front of the house. He seemed panicked, Gallegos said, and had trouble getting the truck out of park.
Then he raced away: 鈥淗e spun out, I mean fast,鈥� spraying gravel in the air.
His grandmother emerged covered in blood: 鈥淪he says, 鈥楤erto, this is what he did. He shot me.鈥欌�� She was hospitalized.
Gallegos, whose wife called 911, said he had heard no arguments before or after the shots, and knew of no history of bullying or abuse of Ramos, who he rarely saw.
Investigators also shed no light on Ramos鈥� motive for the attack, which also left at least 17 people wounded. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Ramos, a resident of the small town about 85 miles (135 kilometers) west of San Antonio, had no known criminal or mental health history.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 see a motive or catalyst right now,鈥� said McCraw of the Department of Public Safety.
Ramos legally bought the rifle and a second one like it last week, just after his birthday, authorities said.
About a half-hour before the mass shooting, Ramos sent the first of three online messages warning about his plans, Abbott said.
Ramos wrote that he was going to shoot his grandmother, then that he had shot the woman. In the last note, sent about 15 minutes before he reached Robb Elementary, he said he was going to shoot up an elementary school, according to Abbott. Investigators said Ramos did not specify which school.
Ramos sent the private, one-to-one text messages via Facebook, said company spokesman Andy Stone. It was not clear who received the messages.
Grief engulfed Uvalde as the details emerged.
The dead included Eliahna Garcia, an outgoing 10-year-old who loved to sing, dance and play basketball; a fellow fourth-grader, Xavier Javier Lopez, who had been eagerly awaiting a summer of swimming; and a teacher, Eva Mireles, whose husband is an officer with the school district鈥檚 police department.
鈥淵ou can just tell by their angelic smiles that they were loved,鈥� Uvalde Schools Superintendent Hal Harrell said, fighting back tears as he recalled the children and teachers killed.
The tragedy was across the U.S. in recent years. Just 10 days earlier, at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket.
The attack was the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.
Amid calls for tighter restrictions on firearms, the Republican governor repeatedly talked about mental health struggles among Texas young people and argued that tougher gun laws in Chicago, New York and California are ineffective.
, who is running against Abbott for governor, interrupted Wednesday鈥檚 news conference, calling the tragedy 鈥減redictable.鈥� Pointing his finger at Abbott, he said: 鈥淭his is on you until you choose to do something different. This will continue to happen.鈥� O鈥橰ourke was escorted out as some in the room yelled at him. Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin yelled that O鈥橰ourke was a 鈥渟ick son of a bitch.鈥�
Texas has some of the most gun-friendly laws in the nation and has been in the U.S. over the past five years.
鈥淚 just don鈥檛 know how people can sell that type of a gun to a kid 18 years old,鈥� Siria Arizmendi, the aunt of victim Eliahna Garcia, said angrily through tears. 鈥淲hat is he going to use it for but for that purpose?鈥�
President Joe Biden said Wednesday that 鈥渢he Second Amendment is not absolute鈥� as he called for new limitations on guns in the wake of the massacre.
But the prospects for reform of the nation鈥檚 gun regulations appeared dim. Repeated attempts over the years to expand background checks and enact other curbs have run into Republican opposition in Congress.
The shooting came days before the National Rifle Association annual convention was set to begin in Houston, with the Texas governor and both of the state鈥檚 Republican U.S. senators scheduled to speak.
Dillon Silva, whose nephew was in a classroom, said students were watching the Disney movie 鈥淢oana鈥� when they heard several loud pops and a bullet shattered a window. Moments later, their teacher saw the attacker stride past.
鈥淥h, my God, he has a gun!鈥� the teacher shouted twice, according to Silva. 鈥淭he teacher didn鈥檛 even have time to lock the door,鈥� he said.
The close-knit community, built around a shaded central square, includes many families who have lived there for generations.
Lorena Auguste was substitute teaching at Uvalde High School when she heard about the shooting and began frantically texting her niece, a fourth grader at Robb Elementary. Eventually she found out the girl was OK.
But that night, her niece had a question.
鈥淲hy did they do this to us?鈥� the girl asked. 鈥淲e鈥檙e good kids. We didn鈥檛 do anything wrong.鈥�
