The motive for the Uvalde massacre remains under investigation, with authorities insisting Salvador Ramos had no known criminal record or history of mental ill health.
During the siege, frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the school.
“Go in there! Go in there!” women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who watched the scene from outside a house across the street.
Javier Cazares, whose fourth-grade daughter, Jacklyn, was killed in the attack, said he saw two officers outside the school and five others escorting students out of the building. But 15 or 20 minutes passed before the arrival of officers with shields, equipped to confront the gunman.
As more parents flocked to the school, he and others pressed police to act, Cazares said. He heard about four gunshots before he and the others were ordered back to a car park.
“A lot of us were arguing with the police, ‘You all need to go in there. You all need to do your jobs’. Their response was, ‘We can’t do our jobs because you guys are interfering’,” Cazares said.
Ramos crashed his car nearby at 11.28am, with the first emergency call coming two minutes later as witnesses reported a man carrying a gun. Ramos then shot at members of the public, roamed the school premises, and entered freely through an unlocked door at 11.40am. He wasn’t killed by officers until 12.45pm.
Texas Ranger Victor Escalon said: “There’s a lot of possibilities. Once we interview all those officers, what they were thinking, what they did, why they did it, the video, the residual interviews, we’ll have a better idea.”
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