4th grade survivor of Texas school capturing describes gunman’s phrases earlier than opening fire

Survivors of the Texas elementary faculty shooting are recounting the gunman's eerie closing words of "Good evening" and "You are all gonna die" earlier than opening fireplace, and the way some performed useless to be spared within the spray of bullets.

Fourth grade scholar Miah Cerrillo, 11, informed CNN her class was watching “Lilo and Stitch” when the shooter appeared Tuesday at Robb Elementary in Uvalde.

She stated the gunman looked at one in every of her teachers within the eye and said, “Good night” earlier than capturing her.

Miah advised her story through a CNN producer. She didn't wish to communicate on digicam and declined to speak to any men following her expertise with the varsity shooting and only felt comfy chatting with women, the broadcaster mentioned. NBC Information could not immediately verify the account.

Miah herself was hit by fragments within the hail of bullets, CNN reported.

After firing pictures in her classroom, the shooter went into the adjoining classroom and opened fire, Miah mentioned. She stated she heard “unhappy music” playing, believing the gunman put it on. 

When requested what the music was, she stated it seemed like, “I want people to die music.”

Miah stated that when the gunman went into the opposite room she smeared a pal’s blood on herself to look useless. She additionally said she and a friend grabbed their trainer’s phone and referred to as 911, telling a dispatcher, “Please send assist because we’re in bother.” 

In the Tuesday horror, 19 children and two lecturers had been killed, and another 17 have been wounded.

A Robb Elementary instructor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, advised NBC Information that a Raptor alert, a program designed to alert employees of a lockdown, went off after photographs were fired and children began to cover below their desks within the class. 

Samuel Salinas, 10, was a scholar in trainer Irma Garcia’s class on Tuesday when the college taking pictures unfolded.

“It was a normal day until my instructor stated we’re on extreme lockdown” and “then there was shooting in the home windows,” he mentioned in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Friday.

He said that the gunman barged into the classroom, introduced, “You’re all gonna die,” and then began to shoot. 

“He shot the instructor after which he shot the kids,” Samuel said. 

He defined that he survived by enjoying useless after he obtained hit in the leg with shrapnel that hit a chair between him and the shooter.

“I believe he was aiming at me,” Samuel mentioned. “I played useless so he wouldn’t shoot me.”

When police lastly entered the room and shot the gunman, the youngsters have been evacuated. In the rushed exit, Samuel noticed the bodies of his teacher and other pupils.

“There was blood on the ground,” he said. “And there have been children ... stuffed with blood.” 

The investigation into the capturing is ongoing, and lots of questions stay as to why it took police so long to take out the gunman.

The shooter, Salvador Ramos, 18, was killed at the scene.

In a information convention Thursday, Texas officials walked again previously launched data, saying the gunman wasn’t confronted by a college police officer and entered the school constructing unobstructed.

Police now say it took over an hour from the primary 911 call to cease the massacre.

Officers shared a new timeline revealing that at 11:28 a.m. Tuesday the gunman crashed a automobile near the varsity and shot at two folks outside a funeral house throughout the road, then climbed over a fence to Robb Elementary.

Officials stated the first 911 call got here in at 11:30 a.m., the gunman entered the college 10 minutes later and four minutes later police were on the scene. The primary officers on the scene known as for backup, however tactical teams didn’t arrive till about an hour later, Victor Escalon, the South Texas regional director for the state Department of Public Safety, said Thursday.

Texas investigators advised NBC News victims of the taking pictures have been found in four classrooms.

Robb Elementary serves second via fourth grade college students within the small city of Uvalde, which is about 75 miles from the Mexico borders and home to a large Latino group.

Parents and family members who had been gathered exterior Robb Elementary through the taking pictures begged and shouted at police to enter and protect their youngsters.

Angeli Rose Gomez told The Wall Avenue Journal she was handcuffed by U.S. marshals outside the varsity for repeatedly demanding police enter the school. 

“The police had been doing nothing,” she stated to the paper. “They had been just standing outside the fence. They weren’t entering into there or operating wherever.” 

She said at first she waited patiently then when she grew to become extra fervent together with her pleas, U.S. marshals allegedly arrested her for intervening in an energetic investigation. 

Marshals informed NBC Information in a press release that deputy marshals “never arrested or placed anybody in handcuffs while securing the crime scene perimeter.”

“Our deputy marshals maintained order and peace in the midst of the grief-stricken community that was gathering across the school."

Marlene Lenthang is a breaking information reporter for NBC News Digital.

Pete Williams and Jonathan Dienst contributed.