New surveillance footage has been released showing the moment a Uvalde officer found out his wife was critically wounded.
Last week, security footage was leaked by Austin American-Statesman and its TV partner KVUE showing armed police officers standing in Robb Elementary School's corridor for 77 minutes while a gunman opened fire on students and teachers.
New footage has now been released showing the moment officer Ruben Ruiz tries to get to his wife, Eva Mireles, who was one of the two teachers who died in the shooting. Mireles had called her husband beforehand to tell him she was wounded in the attack.
Ruiz tried to head to the classroom with a firearm in his hand, however other officers held him back. Despite pleading, saying that "she says she's been shot," he was removed from the situation.
Per the Daily Mail, the gunman, Salvador Ramos, entered the classroom at 11:33AM and security videos show that Ruiz arrived outside the classroom two minutes later, at 11:35AM.
At around 11:36AM, the officer is seen on another surveillance camera footage checking his phone, hoping for a message from his wife.
It was later disclosed that Mireles had called Ruiz from inside the classroom, where she lay injured with a classroom full of children and one other teacher on May 24.
Since the massacre, law enforcement has been heavily denounced for their delayed response to the shooting, which continued for more than an hour before the lone gunman was shot dead by officers.
According to The New York Times, Uvalde County judge, Bill Mitchell, addressed the moment and said: "She’s in the classroom and he’s outside. It’s terrifying."
Steve McCraw - Texas Department of Public Safety director - also spoke about the police's lack of response to the mass shooting at the Texas State Senate hearing last month.
"We got an officer whose wife called him and said she'd been shot and she's dying. He tried to move forward into the hallway. He was detained, and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene," he said, per the Daily Mail.
McCraw also said Pete Arredondo - the on-site commander - made "terrible decisions", and described the law enforcement's reaction as an "abject failure".
However, Uvalde Mayor, Don McLaughlin, addressed the new footage and branded the outlet Austin American-Statesman as "chickens" for revealing the video, which was reportedly set to be shown to the families of the victims before the public.
Speaking during a city council meeting, he said: "That was the most chicken way to put this video out today. There was no reason for those families to have to see that."
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