The story about how the Uvalde gunman entered the school is shifting
Texas officials had said a teacher propped a door open at Robb Elementary in Uvalde just before the gunman entered and carried out a mass shooting — but they now acknowledge that the woman closed the door, after the teacher's attorney spoke out.
It's the latest shift in a narrative that has continued to change since last Tuesday — an extraordinary process that has seen officials repeatedly correcting earlier statements, after they're contradicted by new information.
A teacher didn't leave the school door propped open
The most detailed official timeline of the shooting emerged on Friday, when Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw told journalists that the gunman entered Robb Elementary through a back door that a teacher had left propped open. Moments earlier, he said, the teacher had been using the door to get her cellphone.
But that version of events was clarified on Tuesday. The teacher's lawyer told the San Antonio Express-News that the teacher had kicked a rock away from the push-bar door and pulled it shut after recognizing the danger of the situation. She thought it would automatically lock — but it didn't, her lawyer said.
Attorney Don Flanary told the Express-News that the teacher, who hasn't been named publicly, used a rock to prop open the door while she briefly left the building to bring food from the parking lot to the school just before lunch last Tuesday. She then saw Salvador Ramos crash his truck in a ditch near the school, Flanary said, and went inside to get her phone and call 911.
The teacher was on the phone with the emergency service when she emerged again from the school and was confronted with a frightening shift in the circumstances, as the truck's driver approached the school with a rifle.
"She saw him jump the fence, and he had a gun, so she ran back inside," Flanary said. "She kicked the rock away when she went back in. She remembers pulling the door closed while telling 911 that he was shooting. She thought the door would lock because that door is always supposed to be locked."
Texas officials confirm that the teacher shut the door
After the teacher's account emerged, the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed the essential details in her lawyer's statement.
"We did verify she closed the door," Travis Considine, chief communications officer for Texas DPS, told The Associated Press. He added that the door should have locked when it closed, but it didn't: "The door did not lock. We know that much and now investigators are looking into why it did not lock."
The method the gunman used to bring a powerful rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition into the school is a key detail that reverberates far beyond Uvalde, as other schools look at how they can prevent similar attacks. For the same reason, the police response is also being closely scrutinized.
NPR's Laura Benshoff contributed to this report [Copyright 2022 NPR]
