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When confronted with a mass shooter, the children and the teachers of Uvalde knew what to do.

“Please help. I don’t want to die.”

“Just be as quiet as a mouse.”

“Please let the cops come in.”

Many officers
did not.

“The kids are not in there.”

“He’s, uh, barricaded
in one of the offices.”

“Who’s fucking in charge?”

Uvalde school shooting

“Someone tell me what to do”

Across the country, states require more training to prepare students and teachers for mass shootings than for those expected to protect them. The differences were clear in Uvalde, where children and officers waited on opposite sides of the door.

By Lomi Kriel and Lexi Churchill, The Texas Tribune and ProPublica, and Jinitzail Hernández, The Texas Tribune

Praying for help

Elsa Avila’s students pose for a picture in their newspaper shoes moments before the shooter entered their school. Children’s faces are shown with parental consent.

A child’s drawing for investigators shows how students in Room 109, two doors away from the shooter, followed their training.

Children and teachers formed an “L,” crouching against the walls farthest from doors and windows.

In the drawing, the child wrote “hide,” reflecting a key part of the training.

Diverting from the training

“Kids in this room”

911 dispatcher: You can hear the gunshots being fired?

Ogburn: Yeah, they’re in the building. I don’t know. There’s been a lot. A whole lot. And I got a message that somebody, somebody is shot in another classroom.

911 dispatcher: Somebody is shot in a classroom, ma’am? OK, can you tell me …

Ogburn: Not mine. In another one. Another classroom. I don’t know. I don’t know. Please hurry. Hurry.

911 dispatcher: What room number? What room number? Can you tell me what room?

Ogburn: I’m in Room 102.

911 dispatcher: Is he going to be across from you?

Ogburn: I don’t know where he’s at right now. I got to go. I can’t let him hear me. I can’t let him hear me.

11:56 a.m.

Uvalde Police Sgts. Daniel Coronado and Donald Page tell another officer outside of the school that there are no children inside.

Coronado Body Camera Footage

11:57 a.m.

Uvalde County Sheriff's Deputy Reymundo Lara opens a classroom door and discovers children inside.

Lara Body Camera Footage

11:58 a.m.

The children are evacuated from their classroom through the window.

Coronado Body Camera Footage

“I thought it was a trick”

“Full of victims”

12:12 p.m.

Uvalde police Officer Justin Mendoza and Uvalde police Detective Jose Rodriguez hear a dispatcher tell officers that a child said Room 112 was full of victims.

Mendoza Body Camera Footage

12:18 p.m.

Six minutes later, state game warden Dennis Gazaway mistakenly tells Border Patrol medic Diego Merino-Ruiz that there are no injured children inside but is quickly corrected by Rodriguez.

Gazaway Body Camera Footage

Searching for a key

One last call

1:02 p.m.

Khloie Torres, on a school bus with other classmates, tells Department of Public Safety Special Trooper Crimson Elizondo that she called 911.

Warning: The following video has a loud ringing sound and shows a distressed child covered in blood that is not her own. We are publishing it with the family's consent.

Elizondo Body Camera Footage

Epilogue: learning from the past

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