Police – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Value

An exterior door at Robb Elementary Faculty did not lock when it was closed by a instructor shortly earlier than a gunman used it to get inside and kill 19 college students and two lecturers, leaving investigators looking to determine why, state police stated Tuesday.

State police initially mentioned a trainer had propped the door open shortly before the shooter entered the varsity in Uvalde, Texas, on Could 24.

They've now decided that the trainer, who has not been recognized, propped the door open with a rock, but then removed the rock and closed the door when she realized there was a shooter on campus, said Travis Considine, chief communications officer for the Texas Division of Public Safety. However, Considine mentioned, the door did not lock.

“We did confirm she closed the door. The door did not lock. We all know that much and now investigators are wanting into why it didn't lock,” Considine mentioned.

Investigators confirmed the detail by means of further video footage reviewed since last Friday’s information convention when authorities first stated that the door had been left propped open. Authorities didn't state at that time what had been used to prop open the door.

Considine said the trainer initially propped the door open but ran back inside to get her telephone and call 911 when the gunman crashed his truck on campus.

“She came back out while on her cellphone, she heard someone yell, ‘He has a gun!’, she noticed him jump the fence and that he had a gun, so she ran again inside,” removing the rock when she did, Considine stated.

San Antonio lawyer Don Flanary informed the San Antonio Specific-Information that the Robb Elementary College worker, whom he’s not naming, closed the door shut after realizing that a gunman was on the unfastened. She had initially propped it open to carry food from a car to a classroom, the lawyer said.

“She kicked the rock away when she went back in. She remembers pulling the door closed whereas telling 911 that he was shooting,” Flanary informed the newspaper.

Funerals are deliberate for the next two-and-a-half weeks for the 19 youngsters and two teachers who had been killed in that classroom on Might 24.

“She thought the door would lock as a result of that door is all the time imagined to be locked,” Flanary mentioned.

Flanary didn't immediately return telephone messages left at his workplace from The Associated Press.

Investigators are also nonetheless trying to interview Uvalde Consolidated Unbiased College District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who state police have stated was the commander of the college shooting scene whereas it happened.

Steven McCraw, the pinnacle of the Texas Department of Public Safety, has said Arredondo handled the energetic scene as a hostage scenario and as if youngsters have been now not in danger, while 19 police officers waited in the faculty hallway outdoors the classroom where the shooter was.

McCraw known as that the “mistaken decision,” saying the main focus of the investigation has shifted to Arredondo and the police response.

Other officers within the Uvalde city and colleges police departments proceed to take a seat for interviews and provide statements, but Arredondo has not responded to DPS requests for 2 days, Considine said.