Tag: texas

Here Are Eight Lies Texas Officials Told About Uvalde That Should Get Them Fired

More than one week after an 18-year-old gunman stormed Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, state officials are still struggling to set the record straight on what really happened that led to the deaths of 19 kids and two adults.

For a week now, the public, the press, and politicians have been on a wild goose chase to find out why it took more than an hour for good guys with guns to take down a school shooter in a small school in the small South Texas town last Tuesday.

Unfortunately, Texas safety officials have traded the truth for multiple false, misleading, and vague statements that have significantly undermined the public’s trust in law enforcement’s ability to protect children like the fourth-graders who lost their lives in the attack.

Not only have they severely undercut the trust of Americans, they’ve infuriated the mourning Uvalde community.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he felt “misled” and “livid” after hearing that a poor police response significantly contributed to the delay in action against the shooter. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also lamented that “No one mentioned the fact that there was this 45-minute to an hour hold by the chief of the police of the school district while there were still shots being fired.”

Here are eight lies Texas officials told about the Uvalde shooting that should get them immediately fired.

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Chilling new footage shows Texas gunman Salvador Ramos during shirtless video call with 15-year-old German girl on social media app Yubo – days before he told her about his school massacre plans

The Texas school shooter made two FaceTime calls – one of them while topless – with a German girl he met on social media, who was told of his warped plot to murder.

Ramos, 18, was filmed posing with his shirt off in a call made to the girl, known only as CeCe, after meeting her on social media site Yubo.

Other new images obtained by CNN, show Ramos filming himself while holding the phone under his chin, and while wearing a face mask.

On the day of the massacre, Ramos messaged CeCe on Yubo to tell her he’d just shot his grandma Celia, and that ‘Ima go shoot up a elementary school rn.’

Ramos ultimately carried out the plan, killing 19 young children at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, as well as two female teachers, before being shot dead.  

Ramos threatened to rape girls he talked to on social media app Yubo and said that he would shoot up schools, just weeks before the massacre.

The three teenage users, who revealed the messages to several news outlets, said that they didn’t take Ramos’ threats seriously until the news of Tuesday’s shooting broke out. 

They also reported Ramos’ threats to the app’s support team, which included a series of messages sent by the gunman, threatening to commit sexual violence and carry out school shootings.

Yubo is a French social media app that was created in 2015 and that is designed to ‘meet new people,’ as well as create a sense of community. It was developed by  TWELVE APP in 2015 and allows users to create video livestreams with up to 10 friends. The app currently has 50 million users around the world.

Ramos was still able to keep his profile active on the platform despite reports made to safety teams about his disturbing behavior. CeCe his German Yubo friend says the shooter warned her on the app that he was going to shoot up Robb Elementary School just 15 minutes before he opened fire.  

Screenshots of the pair’s correspondence, provided by the girl to CNN, reveal they were exchanging messages just after 11:01am CT – less than half hour before the massacre had started. 

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Uvalde Gunman Threatened to Shoot up a School Four Years Ago, Rep. Claims

U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) claimed that Uvalde gunman Salvador Ramos had previously threatened to shoot up a school when he was 14. The now deceased gunman allegedly threatened to carry out a school massacre when he turned 18 and was arrested for it, placing him on law enforcement’s radar.

“The shooter was arrested years ago, four years ago, for having this plan for basically saying, you know, when I’m a senior in 2022, I am going to shoot up a school,” Gonzales claimed on Fox News.

“Something fell between the cracks between then and now to allow this to happen. We need to shake out all the facts. We need to figure out what happened,” he continued.

“Where the holes and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But if law enforcement, you know, identified him four years ago as a threat, we need to figure out why he wasn’t – you know, how he got removed from that,” Gonzales added.

Bill Melugin of Fox News later reported that Uvalde police officials are denying the claim. Two teens were arrested for threatening to carry out a massacre in 2014, but the department says the Uvalde gunman was not one of them. “There were two juveniles arrested on conspiracy charges for a shooting plot several years back, but the Uvalde shooter was not involved in that incident and was not arrested,” Melugin was reportedly told by Uvalde law enforcement.

Uvalde law enforcement officials have previously claimed that Ramos had no criminal record and was not on their radar. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has said he isn’t sure whether he had a juvenile record, which are often sealed.

“He may have had a juvenile record, but that is yet to be determined,” Abbott said at a press conference earlier this week.

Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez reported that a 14-year-old Morales Junior High School student and a 13-year-old former Morales student planned to perform a “mass casualty event against the school,” according to KENS 5 in 2018.

The two students were reportedly inspired by the 1999 Columbine massacre while one described himself as feeling “god-like.”

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Officers Waited to Engage Texas School Shooter Because ‘They Could Have Been Shot’: Official

A Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) official has said officers “could have been shot” if they engaged the gunman holed up with his victims in a classroom at Robb Elementary School before a specialist tactical team arrived.

Authorities on Thursday sketched out a timeline of events from when 18-year-old Salvador Ramos crashed his vehicle to when he entered the Texas school at around 11.40 a.m. and slaughtered 19 students and two teachers.

But it wasn’t until almost 1 p.m. that Ramos had been killed and the siege was over, around 90 minutes later.

Questions have been raised amid mounting public anger and scrutiny about the response of law enforcement as more details emerge about the timeline of events.

Texas DPS spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez said the first priority for officers in an active shooter situation is to stop the killing and preserve life.

“But also one thing that, of course, the American people need to understand, is that officers are making entry into this building. They do not know where the gunman is,” Oliverez told CNN.

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Mother trying to save children at Uvalde was handcuffed by federal marshals

After it was revealed on Thursday that not only did police delay their response to sending tactical teams into the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex. amid a school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead but prevented parents from entering, the Wall Street Journal reported that one mother sprinted into the school to get her children, over objections from law enforcement.

Angeli Rose Gomez drove 40 miles to the school upon hearing of the shooting, and she arrived, said “The police were doing nothing. They were just standing outside the fence. They weren’t going in there or running anywhere.”

While state officials said that police were at the school mere moments after the teen gunman entered the school, barricading himself in a classroom and opening fire on young students, they also said that officers were unable to gain access to the classroom.

Gomez said that she was only one of several parents at the school demanding that officers stop waiting around and go into the school. It was then that “federal marshals approached her and put her in handcuffs,” the Journal reports.

The marshals told her she was being arrested for “intervening in an active investigation.” Gomez was able to convince local law enforcement to free her, but said she also saw a father pepper-sprayed, and another tackled and thrown to the ground by law enforcement as he tried to go to the school. His 10-year-old daughter was massacred in the slaughter.

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Onlookers urged police to charge into Texas school

Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.

“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the close-knit town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.

Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting, arriving while police were still gathered outside the building.

Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders.

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” he said. “More could have been done.”

“They were unprepared,” he added.

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Texas officials launch investigation into Uvalde police response to school shooting: Conflicting statements over gunfight with the shooter and videos show parents being held down by cops outside while kids were trapped with the gunman

Texas officials have launched an investigation into the Uvalde police response to the shooting at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday after conflicting statements over whether cops fired at the gunman as he made his way inside. 

Salvador Ramos, 18, arrived at the school in Uvalde at 11.30am, crashing his car into a ditch. 

A school resource officer was at the scene but he failed to stop him from making his way inside. 

Two other cops also rushed to the school at that time – Ramos had just shot his grandmother in the face at their home less than five miles away. She survived and called the police.

It was first reported that those cops exchanged gunfire with Ramos, but police now say they cannot confirm that. 

Ramos went on to barricade himself inside the classroom, killing 19 kids and two teachers, before a SWAT team breached the door and shot him around an hour later. 

Sources say police were struggling to get into the classroom and needed a key to open the door. 

Eventually, a border patrol agent was able to get inside and the shooting was declared over at 1.06pm. 

But it questions remain over why it took police so long to get into the classroom where the kids were trapped with the gunman. 

Frustrated parents were standing outside the school begging cops to go inside when the shooting was unfolding. 

Javier Cazares, whose nine-year-old daughter was murdered, says cops were ‘just standing there’ and waiting for protective shields to arrive at the scene before they went in. 

‘They said they rushed in and all that, we didn’t see that,’ he told The New York Times, adding that many were ‘just standing there.’ 

‘There were plenty of men out there armed to the teeth that could have gone in faster. This could have been over in a couple minutes,’ he said. 

He added that police were faster to escort Beto O’Rourke out of the press conference yesterday when he started heckling the governor than they were to get into the school. 

Angel Garza, whose daughter was killed, was handcuffed after trying to run into the school when he heard that a ‘girl called Amerie’ had been shot. He later found out that she was among those who died while giving medical aid to other children who escaped. 

Derek Sotelo, 26, who works in a tire shop nearby, said parents were begging to be let into the school.  

‘They were just angry, especially the dads. We were wondering, “What the heck is going on? Are they going in?” ‘The dads were saying, “Give me the vest, I’ll go in there!’ 

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Houston Says Businesses Must Install Surveillance Cameras and Cops Can View Footage Without a Warrant

Houston mandates spying outside bars and other businesses. Officials in Houston, Texas, have voted to require an array of businesses—including bars, convenience stores, and strip clubs—to install surveillance cameras and make footage from them readily available to police. The dystopian move is a transparently unconstitutional attempt by city leaders to circumvent Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

To access video from the cameras, police officers will not need a warrant.

The rules apply to all Houston bars, convenience stores, game rooms, nightclubs, or sexually-oriented businesses.

Owners of these establishments must install (on their own dime) surveillance cameras in outdoor areas “providing video coverage from the exterior of the building to the property line.” Businesses must keep these cameras running 24 hours a day, and store camera footage for at least 30 days.

If surveillance footage is requested by the Houston Police Department, businesses must turn it over within 72 hours. Failure to comply would mean fines of $500 per day.

The Houston City Council approved this privacy-killing measure on Wednesday by a vote of 15–1.

“Their vote demonstrated a willingness to push aside constitutional protections and subject Houstonians to overbroad police searches,” said Savannah Kumar of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. “But a city cannot override the Constitution. We are here to help you protect your rights. If the police come knocking on your door, tell them to get a warrant, whether it’s your home or your business.”

The measure is set to take effect in 90 days.

“In addition to trampling on the Fourth Amendment rights of business owners, Houston’s new law also infringes on property rights,” said Institute for Justice Attorney Jared McClain. “This ordinance unfairly saddles certain businesses with thousands of dollars in new expenses to install high-definition surveillance cameras and to archive their footage so it’s available for police on demand.”

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