![]() With her remaining strength, Avila pulled herself up and helped usher students onto chairs and tables and through the window. Officers arrived to evacuate her students - the last to be let out in the area, according to Avila. We love you miss,'" Avila said.įinally, at 12.33pm a window in her classroom broke. "The little girls closest to me kept patting me and telling me, 'It's going to be OK miss. Scared it might be the gunman, the students moved away. She wished for the strength to tell them she was still alive.Ī light flashed into their window, but nobody identified themselves. "But still nobody came to help us," she said.Īs Avila lay motionless, unable to speak loud enough to be heard, some of her students nudged and shook her. Residents say it remains unclear how - or even if - trust between the community and officials can be rebuilt, even as some call for more accountability, better police training and stricter gun safety laws.Īvila recalls hearing the ominous bursts of rapid fire, then silence, then the voices of officers in the hallway yelling, "Crossfire!" and later more officers standing nearby. The district is working to complete new security measures, and the school board in August fired the district's police chief, Pete Arredondo. State and federal investigations into the shooting are ongoing. Lawmakers also found a relaxed approach to lockdowns - which happened often - and security concerns, including issues with door locks. District officials did not respond to requests for comment on actions taken to communicate with law enforcement on May 24, and an attorney for then-Principal Mandy Gutierrez was not available for comment.Īccording to a legislative committee's report that described a botched police response, nearly 400 local, state and federal officers stood in the hallway of the fourth-grade wing or outside the building for 77 minutes before some finally entered the adjoining classrooms and killed the gunman. It's unclear whether her messages were relayed to the police. Texas top cop: Uvalde police response an 'abject failure'.Video shows police milling in hallway during Uvalde massacre."Yes, they are coming," the principal wrote back at 11.48am. At 11.45, she responded to a text from the school's counsellor asking if her classroom was on lockdown with: "I'm shot, send help." And when the principal assured her that help was on the way, she replied simply: "Help." Then at 11.38 in a message to the school's vice principal. First at 11.35am in the text to her family that she says was meant for the teacher group chat. In room 109, Avila repeatedly texted for help, according to messages reviewed by The Associated Press. Moments later, a gunman stormed into their fourth-grade wing and began spraying bullets before ultimately making his way into rooms 111 and 112. Twenty-one people died in the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School. ![]() As she slammed the classroom door so the lock would catch, her students took their well-practised lockdown positions. A student lined up by the door for recess had just told her something was going on outside: People were running - and screaming. Minutes before she felt the sharp pain of the bullet piercing her intestine and colon, Avila was motioning students away from the walls and windows and closer to her. ![]() "I'm trying to make sense of everything," Avila said in an August interview, "but it is never going to make sense."Ī scar down her torso brings her to tears as a permanent reminder of the horror she endured with her 16 students as they waited in their classroom for an hour for help while a gunman slaughtered 19 children and two teachers in two adjoining classrooms nearby. Many will return to Uvalde school district campuses, though Robb Elementary itself will never reopen. Some have opted for virtual education, others for private school. The start of school will look different for her, as for other survivors of the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in which 21 people died, with an emphasis on healing, both physically and mentally. In a text to her family that she meant to send to fellow Uvalde teachers, she wrote: "I'm shot."įor the first time in 30 years, Avila will not be going back to school as classes resume in the small, southwest Texas city. Elsa Avila slid to her phone, terrified as she held the bleeding side of her abdomen and tried to stay calm for her students. ![]()
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