In one 911 call, a fourth-grader can be heard pleading for help and hushing a classmate.
The records also include body-camera footage from five police officers, dash-cam video, recorded 911 calls, radio and emergency communications, and text messages between various officials. Lawsuits against Uvalde County, the school district and the Texas Department of Public Safety for more records are ongoing.
“A lot of people are gone,” said Khloie Torres, as she tried to count those still alive in her fourth-grade classroom but gave up after reaching eight. Other students can be heard screaming out to officers, pleading for help, and the injured can be heard moaning.
“Please help, they are dying,” she told the 911 dispatcher. Torres survived the shooting.
The Post previously obtained the vast majority of the records released Saturday from the Texas Rangers investigation, including excerpts of Torres’s phone call. But the new information includes her full 17-minute conversation with a dispatcher.
A Post investigation with ProPublica and the Texas Tribune found that the emergency medical response was thwarted by the botched police efforts to stop the gunman. Law enforcement’s ill-fated transition from responding doomed some lifesaving efforts, a 20-minute documentary published last year by The Post also found.
The newly released records come more than two years after the massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead, and as victims’ families clamor for greater transparency into the actions of law enforcement. Two school district police officers, including former chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, have been criminally charged in connection with the law enforcement response to the massacre.
Arredondo, who has been charged with 10 felony counts of child endangerment, told CNN recently that he is being scapegoated and that Texas state troopers should have taken over incident command. It took more than 70 minutes for any officer to confront the shooter.
“These are my children, too, people don’t understand that,” Arredondo said, describing how he walked those hallways daily and got to know the students who were gunned down. He blamed “lies and deceptions” for fueling false narratives that lost him the trust of his community.
Adrian Gonzales, the other former school district police officer facing charges, pleaded not guilty to 29 counts of child endangerment last month.
The records released Saturday shed new light on how the tragedy unfolded and the police response.
As the shooting unfolded, the uncle of the shooter, Salvador Ramos, called 911 and begged police to put him in contact with his nephew.
“Maybe he can stand down,” Armando Ramos said at 12:57 p.m., according to the call log.
During the six-minute call, Ramos can be heard uttering: “Why did you do this?” and “I think he’s shooting kids.”
The dispatcher asked Ramos if he noticed any change in his nephew’s behavior.
“No, nothing. … He said that he was mad and that his grandmother was bugging him too much.”
The dispatcher ended the call with Armando Ramos by saying an officer will get in touch with him.
