(Dallas) The uncle of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooter who killed 19 students and two teachers pleaded with police to let him try to stop his nephew, according to a 911 call included in a large batch of audio and video recordings released by city authorities Saturday.
Recordings related to the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School were released by Uvalde authorities after a lengthy legal battle. The Associated Press and other news organizations sued after authorities initially refused to publicly release the information.
“Maybe he could listen to me because he listens to me, everything I tell him, he listens to me,” the man, who identified himself as Armando Ramos, said in the 911 call. “Maybe he could back off or do something to surrender,” Ramos said, his voice breaking.
The caller told the dispatcher that the shooter, identified as Salvador Ramos, 18, had been at his house the night before. He said his nephew had been in his room with him all night and told him he was upset because his grandmother was “bothering” him.
“Oh my God, please, please don’t do anything stupid,” the man says in the call. “I think he’s shooting children.”
The call came in around 1 p.m. on May 24, 2022, about 10 minutes after the shooting stopped. Salvador Ramos was fatally shot by authorities at 12:50 p.m. He had entered the school at 11:33 a.m., officials said.
The delayed response by law enforcement — nearly 400 officers waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the shooter in a classroom filled with dead and wounded children and teachers — was widely condemned as a massive failure. The Uvalde massacre was one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history.
Just before arriving at school, Salvador Ramos injured his grandmother at her home, shooting her. He then took a van from the house and drove to the school.
A panicked woman called 911 at 11:29 a.m., just before the shooting began, to tell a dispatcher that a pickup truck had crashed into a ditch and the occupant had run onto the school campus.
“Oh my God, they have a gun,” she said, telling the dispatcher that shots had been fired.
“Oh my God, I think there were kids in the gym,” she continued. “Please hurry up!”
At 1:19 p.m., another relative of Salvador Ramos called 911, fearing he was heading toward her.
“Can you please send someone to my house?” Kesley Ramos asked the dispatcher. “The active shooter is my cousin and I don’t want him in my house.”
Multiple federal and state investigations into the slow response by law enforcement have highlighted cascading problems in training, communication, leadership and technology, and have called into question whether officers prioritized their own lives over those of children and teachers in this South Texas city of about 15,000, 80 miles west of San Antonio. Families of the victims have long sought accountability for the slow police response.
Two of the officers who responded to the call are now facing criminal charges: Former Uvalde School Police Chief Pete Arredondo and former school officer Adrian Gonzales have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of child abandonment and endangerment. A suspended Texas state trooper in Uvalde was reinstated earlier this month.
Some families have called for more officers to be charged and have filed federal and state lawsuits against law enforcement, social media companies, online video game companies and the gun manufacturer that made the rifle used by the shooter.