A 77-minute video recording, along with body camera footage from a responding officer, shows in excruciating detail what happened when dozens of local, state and federal officers entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, heavily armed, clad in body armor, helmets and some with protective shields, The Austin American-Statesman reports. In the video, officers walk back and forth in the hallway, some leaving the camera frame, then reappearing, others training their weapons toward the classroom, talking, making cellphone calls, sending texts or looking at floor plans. None enters or attempts to enter the classrooms. Even after hearing at least four shots from the classrooms 45 minutes after police arrived, they waited.
The video tells in real time the brutal story of how heavily armed officers failed to launch immediately a cohesive and aggressive response to stop the shooter and save more children if possible. It reinforces the trauma of those parents, friends and bystanders outside the school who pleaded with police to do something, and for survivors who quietly called 911 from inside the classroom to beg for help. "We were supposed to get some footage shown to us on Sunday of the filming inside the hallway," said Javier Cazares, whose daughter was killed in the shooting, Axios reports, crediting CNN. "We didn’t want any audio and these SOBs did it," Cazares said. "It got leaked. It got shown all over the world and we are pissed. These families didn’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it. That’s a slap to our babies’ faces and we’re tired of this."