A Uvalde mother said she was handcuffed and nearly arrested while imploring law enforcement to enter Robb Elementary School during Tuesday’s shooting.
Angeli Rose Gomez told the newspaper she and many other parents were waiting outside the Texas school, encouraging law enforcement to act, as a gunman raged inside. As her calls grew more urgent, she said, U.S. Marshals handcuffed her and told her she was being arrested for intervening in an active investigation.
7 JUNE 2022 Angeli Gomez Says She’s Being Threatened By Law Enforcement | https://www.theroot.com/uvalde-mom-who-saved-her-children-says-shes-being-threa-1849028508
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According to reports, Gomez drove up to the school in her car while the suspected gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was still shooting. Gomez told news outlets she could hear gunshots in a distance classroom as she ran for the classrooms of her two sons. Meanwhile, she says, she didn’t see a single police officer inside the school responding to the shooting.
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31 MAY 2022 Uvalde police, school district no longer cooperating with Texas probe of shooting: Sources | https://abcnews.go.com/US/uvalde-police-school-district-longer-cooperating-texas-probe/story?id=85093405
30 MAY 2022 Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) Defends Police Response To Uvalde Shooting | https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-cornyn-defends-uvalde-police-response_n_629435e9e4b0933e737567e0
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The police were doing nothing, they were just standing outside the fence. They weren’t going in there or running anywhere.
Uvalde Mom Angeli Rose Gomez
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!’”
Derek Sotelo, who headed to the school after hearing gunfire from his tire shop nearby, told The New York Times.
Ramos had turned 18 days earlier and bought two AR-15-style rifles shortly after his birthday. The guns were bought legally. Governor Greg Abbott signed a law last summer allowing guns to be carried without a permit.
Gomez said she also saw a father get pepper sprayed and another get tackled to the ground by police at the frantic scene. She described seeing police use a taser on a father who was approaching a bus to pick up his child. “They didn’t do that to the shooter, but they did that to us. That’s how it felt,” she said.
“There’s a f**king shooting at the school and these f**king cops are telling everybody to leave, dude, while everybody’s here trying to pick up their f**king kids,” a man can be heard saying in a livestream he filmed on the scene. “They’re just all f**king parking outside, man ― they need to go in there… The cops ain’t doing s**t but standing outside.”
Another video shows a chaotic scene outside the school, with some people shouting at police while others are heard crying and screaming. Officers can be seen restraining a man on the pavement, while another stands in front of them with a taser and a woman is screaming “he’s a parent!”
The shooter, an 18-year-old male armed with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, killed 19 children and two teachers before he was taken down by a responding Border Patrol officer.
