Episode 44 - Uvalde, Texas Elementary School Shooting

0:15 Welcome back to Crumb Besties to what is the third of our US

0:20 school shooting series. If you haven't listened to the

0:21 1st 2GO back. Last week we released 2 episodes

0:25 so you can go back and listen to our Columbine episode and our

0:29 Sandy Hook Elementary episode. Today we are going to be talking

0:32 about the Uvalde school shootings.

0:35 So elementary school shootings at Rob Elementary School in

0:39 Texas, Evaldi, Texas. So before we get into it, Meg,

0:43 what have you been up to? What's been going on?

0:46 Where are you at? Where am I at living living life

0:50 yeah, we're oh God, it's just mental, the everything that goes

0:57 on. I think in a week we're still

0:59 recovering from busy school holidays Yeah.

1:02 And then coming back into the routine and the new routine,

1:06 which is just, as we said, another episode, like, is

1:09 killing me. Yeah.

1:11 But my, my parents are away at the moment and we're about to go

1:15 away and not I like, I'm like, I'm losing my security blanket.

1:19 Yeah. Great grandparents are the

1:21 greatest. Grandparents are the best.

1:23 Although I did helpful grandparents.

1:24 Funny story, I went we're going around there the other day.

1:27 Like on the way from school. We had to go there before we do

1:29 our after school stuff. And Brody says to me, my

1:32 youngest, and he goes, oh, is grandpa gonna be there?

1:34 I go. Well, yeah, yeah.

1:35 Leave. His house and he goes.

1:39 Oh, is he gonna call me a turd again?

1:43 Probably. Probably.

1:45 Let's face it. Term of endearment, right?

1:48 He loves you. He loves you just the way you

1:50 are. He.

1:51 Does that's his? It's his.

1:52 It's his affection style. Yeah.

1:54 Love language. Yeah.

1:55 I was known as poo for most of my my childhood.

2:01 Oh, that's seriously. Was that what your dad would

2:02 call you? Yeah, my dad.

2:05 My dad used to call me Lola because.

2:09 So he'd like, my name's obviously I'm Emma, and he'd

2:13 call me so that. And then he'd call me Emmy

2:16 Lolita. I don't know why.

2:17 Oh, OK. And then so Emmy Lolita went to

2:19 Lola. Yeah.

2:20 I love it. I love it.

2:22 They let the names that parents give for their get for their

2:23 kids. Like, yeah, like my niece has

2:25 always been Bean. Like Taylor Bean.

2:28 OK, where that's even come? From but like.

2:30 It's just is that like France's bean?

2:32 Don't I? Oh yeah.

2:33 Yeah, Kurt Cobain's daughter. Yeah.

2:35 Yeah, no, she wouldn't even know who that is.

2:37 But sorry, Tea. I always call it tea.

2:41 But but yeah, no, she's always been like Bean.

2:43 Like her dad calls me that and I love it.

2:45 Cute. I love it.

2:46 I love it. Yes, but because like, my

2:49 Brody's got 10,000 the names, yeah, that he gets.

2:53 So because he gets Frosty, because he was IVF and in the

2:57 freezer for two years, he's always known as Frosty.

3:00 But yeah, like there's lots of little ones that he gets.

3:02 Mason not so much. He's always just Mason.

3:04 Like kind of. Thing he gets buddy No no, he

3:07 gets Bubba and like and so then Brody hangs shit on him about

3:11 that. Oh yeah, of course.

3:13 So. That makes me call him Bubba

3:14 more. Yeah, obviously.

3:16 Yesterday Lucas had an appointment and at the

3:18 appointment the the person was saying to him, oh, what would

3:22 you like me to call you? And he'd had, he's had

3:25 appointments with this, with this woman before.

3:28 And in at the start he was like, I like being called Lukey.

3:31 And so Lukey it was. And then she came out yesterday

3:34 and she's like, oh, so we've had a bit of a name change and I'm

3:37 like, Oh yeah, right. What is it?

3:39 And she's like, he's decided he wants to be called JJ.

3:42 And I'm like, oh, and we do, we do sometimes call him Lukey J

3:45 because his middle name is John, right?

3:49 And so we do call him Lukey J. Or that that was actually my

3:52 sister-in-law, who actually calls him that all the time.

3:55 And so now he's just decided he'd like to be JJ, right?

3:58 So she's like, we're going with it until we have another change.

4:01 So there you go. He's just made-up a a new

4:03 nickname for himself. For himself.

4:04 Love that. Love a good nickname.

4:06 Yeah, like there's some good ones.

4:07 Yeah, my eldest Oliver, he's his.

4:10 His is great. Yeah, he's not fully.

4:13 I mean, he does like it, but he hasn't fully embraced it yet.

4:15 But I feel like as he, I feel like as he gets older, he's

4:18 gonna love it. Yeah.

4:19 So he's in the back is. He that on the back of his.

4:21 No, I tried to get it but no, he ended up going with.

4:25 That's. Right.

4:26 Owls, I think, yeah, right. So we, he is a busy boy.

4:31 He has, he's active, Yep, very busy.

4:33 He's got lots going on and he's into everything, like into

4:38 absolutely everything. And things just happened to him.

4:42 Oh, you might, some might say slightly accident prone.

4:46 Anyway, so when he was little, we used to call him all of a

4:49 sudden because he'd just always be there like all of a sudden

4:52 something would happen. So he called him all of a sudden

4:54 and then that got shortened down to suds.

4:58 So now it's just suds. Love, I love.

5:00 All of a sudden it just suits. Him.

5:02 It really does, doesn't it? Yeah.

5:05 So yeah, love a bit of a nickname and I love, as you

5:07 said, those like in in your family, how those things just

5:10 become, yeah, what they are. Yeah, and then like half the

5:13 time you don't even know where they started.

5:14 No sort of stuff. I I think they're the.

5:16 Best. Yeah, it's so good.

5:17 Yeah, very good. Yeah, like my, my other niece,

5:21 my brother calls her cheesy and I heard someone the other day

5:24 kind of go like, why do you call her cheesy?

5:25 Like, and he's like, and he kind of kind of gave a few different

5:29 reasons. I think he's kind of gone.

5:31 I can't really remember. I can't really.

5:32 Remember which one was the right one or whatever.

5:34 Like it's yeah. But she's just, it's just

5:36 cheesy. Life's cheesy.

5:37 And they're like, oh. I love it.

5:39 Oh, that's so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

5:41 Cute. Very cute.

5:43 What's so cute? What are we going to be talking

5:45 about today? Sorry.

5:46 No. So 3rd, as I mentioned at the

5:49 start of the episode, third of three for now.

5:52 Yeah, about US school shootings and today's one again, I think I

5:57 alluded to this in our last episode.

5:59 My goodness, it was mishandled right from the get go.

6:02 And it what what ended up happening was that more people

6:07 probably died than needed to. There was such inaction, such

6:12 miscoordination of what needed to happen.

6:15 And you know, for all of the things that should have been

6:17 learnt, for all of the school shootings that have come before

6:21 it, it seems that none of that actually came to fruition in

6:24 this instance. And it's, it's actually

6:28 horrifying the fact that you know what's being learnt every

6:32 time this happens, what this proves nothing, nothing's been

6:35 learnt. They're putting in more and more

6:36 measures, but nothing stops these things from happening

6:39 because. The one thing that needs to

6:40 happen doesn't happen. That's it.

6:42 Oh, gun control. What now?

6:45 That. Yeah, Fifth Amendment, right.

6:47 That's it. I mean, this, this perpetrator,

6:51 similarly to the, the three that we've spoken about previously,

6:55 he had some issues. He had stuff going on and he it

7:01 wasn't dealt with again and he wasn't, he wasn't doing the

7:06 things that he needed to do and the therapies that he needed to

7:08 do and attending, you know, the supports that he needed in

7:14 place. He was living with his

7:15 grandparents, I believe at the time.

7:16 I think he came from quite a fractured home life, a very sort

7:21 of tumultuous home life from what I was ever.

7:24 Drug user didn't find a whole lot up about.

7:27 Dad, I don't think he knew his dad.

7:29 I feel like maybe his dad left before he was born.

7:32 I think, yeah. I don't think his dad was

7:33 involved in his life. He was definitely raised by his

7:35 grandparents. Yeah.

7:37 And you know what? Your grandparents, your

7:39 grandparent for a reason they're not necessarily equipped to deal

7:44 with. You know, there's so much that

7:45 changes generation to generation.

7:47 And also a grandparent. That's a very different

7:50 relationship. They're not your parents.

7:52 We're only having this conversation today with some

7:53 friends of mine about the fact of like, oh God, to have had the

7:56 my mum be a mum as as she is, as a grandparent, would have been a

7:59 whole different childhood. It wouldn't have been amazing.

8:02 She really nice. Yeah.

8:03 I I'd take my mum as a grandma any day.

8:07 Get so much stuff that I would never have been.

8:09 I know as a kid, like she indulges them because because

8:12 she's allowed to. She's a grandparent.

8:14 Hi mum, she listens. Hi to my mum too, Pat and Lynn

8:19 you know. I love it, I love it.

8:21 But you know, that's, that's, as you said, that's the way

8:25 grandparents should be. That's their role.

8:27 Their role isn't to parent the child.

8:29 No, it's to grandparent the child.

8:32 And that's a very different thing.

8:33 So when a grandparent then has to take on that responsibility

8:36 of becoming the primary caregiver for their grandchild,

8:39 I, I think it would be really hard.

8:42 Not only are you probably 20-30, forty years older than what you

8:45 were. Yeah, when you did it with your

8:47 own, you did it with your own. Much changes in that time.

8:50 And also I feel like grandparents don't necessarily

8:53 have the same authority as a parent figure necessarily.

8:55 And would you even have the energy?

8:58 I don't have the energy now. Hats off entirely to those that

9:01 take it. Sure, because it is.

9:03 I mean, look, there's a different point your life where,

9:05 I mean, you look forward to that retirement and that different

9:08 lifestyle and, you know, yeah, spoiling A grandchild

9:11 potentially or and then you end up raising that next generation.

9:15 That's got to be huge. It's a huge thing to take on and

9:18 there's so many that do do it really, really well.

9:20 Like, I mean, we're not saying that every, you know,

9:23 grandparent that raises their their children's children end up

9:27 doing shit. Oh God, no.

9:29 That is far from it. Because there's definitely very,

9:31 very, very good grandparents out there for doing this and who

9:34 take this stuff on and, you know, but unfortunately it, it

9:37 can go pear shaped. Yeah.

9:39 This one did, yeah. I mean again, it's from

9:42 multitude of factors and reasons.

9:44 Absolutely. Not just so much at play.

9:46 Yeah. I mean, there's, I mean, the

9:47 reason why a grandparent takes on, you know, children.

9:50 There's so many reasons before that.

9:52 And this one, you know, sounds like it was.

9:54 Yeah. It was because he had had such a

9:56 hard life at home with parents prior and they've taken him in,

10:00 which then comes with a whole lot of trauma itself.

10:02 Absolutely so. Yeah, yeah.

10:04 So this all started with sorry, sorry.

10:10 It started on the 24th of May in 2020.

10:14 Oh my God, 2022. I just had a total like what?

10:18 What year was it? I thought 2020 2 written down,

10:21 but I just had a God was it? Yeah, yeah.

10:25 At 11:33 AM the perpetrator entered the school, but there

10:30 was a fair bit leading up to that that will just very quickly

10:32 go through. Yeah, at about 11:10 on that

10:35 morning. So the perpetrators name was

10:37 Salvador Ramos. He was 18 years old at the time.

10:40 At around 11:10 that morning, he shot his grandmother.

10:43 He then texted his he was friends online, friends with his

10:48 girl in Germany, and he texted her and said to her that he'd

10:52 just shot and killed his grandmother and he was headed to

10:54 attack a school. Well, actually sent her like 1

10:57 message saying I'm going to shoot her and then sent another

10:59 saying I have just shot her. Yeah.

11:01 Which because later on, she was charged with not in Germany, not

11:06 in in America, she was charged with not letting police

11:11 authorities know that there was potentially an issue with

11:14 someone shooting people. Yeah.

11:16 Yeah. So Ramos then takes his

11:20 grandmother's truck and drives towards Rob Elementary School.

11:23 Now, I believe he did have a connection with the school.

11:25 He attended that school in elementary when he was in

11:29 elementary school, so the US. Attended for grade for 4th

11:34 grade. Yep.

11:35 So in the US, elementary school goes from kindergarten to grade

11:39 four and then they move into middle school.

11:41 So a little bit different from the Australian and New Zealand

11:43 school systems, but that's, that gives you a bit of an idea of

11:48 how young the students were who were involved in all of this.

11:52 He then crashes his grandmother's truck into a ditch

11:55 near the school. You can see CCTV footage of this

11:58 from the school of it happening. It's really odd.

12:00 Apparently he's never driven before.

12:02 He didn't have a license. He hadn't driven.

12:03 No. But even the way that this all

12:06 happens, it's so bizarre. I mean, yeah, you can tell he's

12:09 not experienced. There's something going on

12:11 there, but he just kind of like pulls into a ditch and crashes

12:15 into a ditch and then he gets out of the car like a little

12:18 bewildered. And what actually happened was a

12:23 teacher actually saw this happen and she was like, Oh my God.

12:26 Like someones crashed their car. So she's then gone out to sort

12:29 of see what's going on and to call 911 because she's like,

12:33 this person could be injured and he was far enough away that she

12:36 couldn't get to him. Like it was, I don't know, a few

12:38 100 multiple hundreds of meters away.

12:41 So she saw this happen, didn't know who was driving or couldn't

12:43 see that particular level of detail.

12:45 But this person probably needs help.

12:46 She couldn't necessarily leave. Because she was in classroom.

12:49 Classroom and whatever, but she's gone out the door to sort

12:52 of see oh, OK, call 911, give them the information that they

12:55 need. Yeah.

12:57 She then goes back in through that door and pulls it shut.

13:01 You can see that on CCTV. This comes up again and again.

13:05 If you watch any documentaries about Uvalde, this comes up

13:08 again and again. She shut the door.

13:11 She did the right thing. This is not her fault.

13:14 Yes. OK.

13:15 I'm just gonna leave that. That.

13:16 Yeah. Yep.

13:18 So then the. Way.

13:21 Apparently the doors should lock on close.

13:24 Yes. So they will be open.

13:26 From internally. That's right.

13:27 So what should happen is, as the doors close from outside, nobody

13:32 should be able to open those doors.

13:34 Yeah, that didn't happen when this teacher closed the door.

13:37 And that is? Malfunctioning.

13:39 Yeah. And these doors had only been

13:41 apparently installed, like, super recently, like, I think

13:43 weeks before. Yeah.

13:45 So obviously something hadn't been installed properly.

13:48 OK, these things happen, but unfortunately this weakness in

13:53 that process, in that, you know, is what the perpetrator, what

13:57 Ramis used to gain access to the school.

14:00 But again, he had weapons. He.

14:02 Had weapons he could have gotten in like this was just an

14:05 opportunistic way to get in without having to shoot windows

14:08 and whatnot. Yeah.

14:10 So at 11:31, he initiates the gunfire outside of the school so

14:16 people can hear that there's gunshots.

14:18 And I, I believe because of the gun that he was using, it was

14:22 very clear that these were gunshots and it was close.

14:25 Was it a shotgun that he had or something was?

14:27 It I've I do have it written down somewhere in my notes if I

14:30 get to it. All I know he had an AR15.

14:32 Oh, that's right. Yes.

14:33 So of course, yeah, now I know that's a serious gun.

14:36 I don't know much about gun, but I know that that's a serious.

14:39 Gun. That's one that you don't just,

14:40 you know, have at home. Well, no, you wouldn't think so.

14:48 So when he was shooting from outside, he I think he was just

14:51 kind of like, like, you know, shooting across the windows and,

14:55 and he was breaking windows at this time.

15:00 A So somebody called 911 when they 1st at 11:30 when they

15:09 first heard these gunshots outside.

15:13 There was a school district officer at the school and he, so

15:23 I think he was actually coming to visit the school.

15:25 Anyway. There is an interview with him

15:26 online where he kind of outlines what he what he says and does.

15:29 But even that's a bit sketchy. But this guy says he drives

15:33 past. Yeah.

15:35 And he thinks the gunman is a teacher.

15:38 Yeah, there's a teacher and he thinks, oh, that's the gunman.

15:40 Yeah. Whereas but the gunman like

15:42 walks right past him and he doesn't and he doesn't see

15:45 realized, realize that that's the government.

15:47 So he's. Mistakenly.

15:50 Identifying a different person. A teacher as the gunman anyway.

15:53 So this just kind of starts the confusion of everything.

15:56 Yeah. So Ramos has entered through

15:59 that W entrance door. He walks through the hallway and

16:02 shoots into two different classrooms that have a door in

16:06 between them. Yeah.

16:07 Yeah, they're interconnecting. Yeah, he enters and enters in

16:11 one side, goes through to the that interconnected classroom

16:15 and then comes out the other side.

16:17 He fired 100 rounds of ammunition over 4 minutes in

16:22 those two classrooms. Well, he, he, he set off 164

16:26 rounds in total in the whole time he was there.

16:29 So that the majority of it obviously is in those two

16:31 classrooms. And now and I don't when you say

16:34 around, well, I think it's that's, that's not a bullet like

16:37 as in like that's not 164 bullets.

16:39 There's a whole lot more bullets to that.

16:40 Like it can be like 3030. Rounds around, yes, I think it's

16:45 something like that. I don't know exactly, but I

16:47 don't think it like he has. He had so much ammunition.

16:50 He had a bag of ammunition. And that's another element of

16:52 this, like the gun control stuff that I cannot understand.

16:55 And I think we talked about this when we talked about Port

16:56 Arthur, yeah, as well of like how much ammunition does one

16:59 person need in a for a recreational purpose or for, you

17:03 know, for what guns are meant to be for?

17:05 I understand having a well, I don't understand entirely, but

17:07 let's just, you know, go, go with it.

17:09 That, you know, you've got a gun for protection in your house.

17:11 You'll you'll need bullets for that gun.

17:13 I understand that. But you don't need thousands.

17:16 Hundreds or thousands, he. Literally had like 1400 rounds.

17:21 Oh, like that? Would have been heavy too, but

17:23 he had them in a like a duffel type bag.

17:25 Yeah. Absolutely boys, mind that like

17:29 people just should not be able to purchase that kind of level

17:32 of amount of ammunition. Yeah.

17:35 To me, it's like a like a like, you know, there's limits on how

17:37 much, you know, drugs you can have for recreational purposes.

17:40 That's it exactly. I feel like it's got to have

17:42 those sorts of limits on it as well of how much you can

17:44 purchase. It's yes, it becomes no longer

17:47 recreational. Absolutely.

17:48 Surely. Yeah.

17:49 Oh, for sure. I don't know AR15 how that's

17:52 anyway. Yeah, yeah, same.

17:54 But surely so 1135 three Uvalde Police Department officers enter

18:00 the school through that same door.

18:02 So it only took them a few minutes to get there.

18:04 After that 911 call 2 of the again, you can see all of this

18:08 in CCTV. It is actually quite fascinating

18:11 to watch because it's and it's been heavily, heavily criticized

18:17 by everyone involved because The thing is, police officers now

18:23 are trained to deal with active shooter situations.

18:26 And that is exactly what this was.

18:28 But they did not follow any of the processes or procedures or

18:32 the training that they have supposedly extensively done in

18:36 order to minimize any fallout from this.

18:40 So what actually happened was these these three police

18:44 officers have entered. Two of them get grazed by

18:48 bullets. So one on the shoulder and I

18:50 think one on the ear grazes his ear.

18:52 They then retreat because their Sergeant tells them to.

18:57 They then fuck off. They then fuck off.

19:00 Like just leave entirely. Four more, four more upon this

19:04 happening, obviously they're like officers wounded.

19:07 Four more Ivaldi police officers do come into the building,

19:12 right? But they do not follow any of

19:14 their processes or procedures to take down that gunman.

19:17 He was in the hallway at the time.

19:19 Oh my God. Yeah, that's right.

19:22 They were told they were there and they had a perfectly good

19:24 shot, but they had a shot told like, you know, no, no, we're

19:26 waiting for authority. And no one was saying, yeah,

19:29 take the shot. So the the problem was this,

19:32 this police chief who was one of the three who first went in

19:36 there, Yeah, he told them to retreat.

19:40 And and the gunman was in the hallway with no other students

19:43 around. Like what?

19:45 You know they they weren't. But there were multiple like.

19:49 Acting the way they should. There were multiple, like,

19:51 divisions of like, not just police like as in like.

19:54 So there's the, you've already Consolidated Independent School

19:57 District Police Department. Yeah.

20:00 Then there's the United States Border Patrol Tactical Unit.

20:04 Yeah. Then there was the, you know,

20:06 the local Police Department. Like to me they just seem to be

20:09 too many cooks. Well, the the problem is nobody

20:13 knew who had authority, who was actually in charge.

20:16 They all blamed each other, but nobody took the the lead in this

20:21 and didn't know who had jurisdiction.

20:23 I mean to me. It seems like, you know, OK,

20:25 that, you know, they've gone overboard almost in terms of how

20:29 much security measures they're going to put in place.

20:31 Yeah, to the point where they didn't know of all these

20:34 different parts of pieces of this puzzle of like, who

20:38 actually controls all of it when it happens that they're all kind

20:41 of like standing back going like, you know, we've got a job

20:43 to do, we're here, tell us what to do.

20:46 And like, no, no, no, you tell us what to do.

20:48 Oh no. You.

20:50 You. There was a lot, a lot of

20:52 confusion. It just blows my mind that the,

20:56 again, it comes down to they've put bucket loads of money into

21:01 this, like, you know, into these security measures in these

21:03 schools. It to the point where there is

21:05 an actual Police Department for schools.

21:10 Yeah. Like, I mean that, that, I mean,

21:12 you know how much gossip that goes around our school that if a

21:15 police car drives past. The school.

21:19 It has nothing to do with anyone at the school.

21:21 Let alone there being an actual Police Department that is solely

21:24 developed for schools like that seems insane.

21:29 The amount of money that goes and there was 6 police officers

21:32 in that department that were assigned to that and church.

21:35 I think, I think maybe 8 schools.

21:37 I think it was like that seems insane, doesn't it?

21:41 There's there's, there's all this money being put into it,

21:44 but then it what what they're trained and what this there for

21:47 comes and happens like fuck it up.

21:51 Like honestly. What the hell?

21:53 9 minutes after the gunman enters Sorry. 10 minutes after

21:56 the gunman enters the school, the school posts on Facebook

21:59 that the school is under lockdown and then emails.

22:02 Parents buddy post on Facebook. Also, there's an active shooter.

22:05 Rob Elementary is under lockdown status.

22:08 Rob Elementary parents please know at this time Rob Elementary

22:11 is under a lockdown status due to gunshots in the area.

22:14 So not even gunshots at our school.

22:18 The students and staff are safe in the building.

22:20 The building is secure in a lockdown status.

22:22 Your cooperation is needed at this time by not visiting the

22:25 campus. As soon as the lockdown status

22:27 is lifted, you will be notified. Thank you for your cooperation.

22:32 Imagine as a parent receiving that.

22:34 Sorry. Well, it prompted 11 parents to

22:38 basically go down there. Yep.

22:40 Now we're now 11:45 AM. Twelve minutes since the gunman

22:44 has entered the school. No action.

22:46 He is still at large, loose within the building.

22:51 Yeah, he was in the building for an hour and 14 minutes.

22:53 I mean, you compare that to like, well, who we spoke about

22:56 last week, you know that he it was a it was 5 minutes and like,

22:59 yes, he caused a lot of damage in those 5 minutes, but 5

23:02 minutes and this and it was ended like we're an hour and 14

23:05 minutes. Fuck.

23:06 As well. I mean, that's why this is just

23:10 an unfathomable, unfathomable amount of people and children

23:13 died I. Mean the trauma of those people

23:16 in that room, that building for an hour and 14 minutes to be

23:18 trapped going What the hell? And not knowing what's going on.

23:22 I think it was this. I'm pretty sure it was a baldy.

23:24 I read somewhere where like there was students and teachers

23:27 who were trapped in a room for four hours.

23:29 Yes, because they didn't. Well, we'll get to this in a

23:31 minute, but they did not clear the building for that long and

23:35 they missed some places. What they didn't, they couldn't

23:38 find that that the one where they were trapped for four

23:40 hours, it was because they couldn't actually find the key

23:43 to that classroom. No one had the key.

23:46 And then so they ended up having to call in a janitor.

23:48 Who, the overnight janitor or something.

23:51 Someone had to get him so they could get the key to open that

23:53 classroom. Wouldn't you fucking knock the

23:54 door down? Wouldn't you?

23:56 I don't know, break a window? Yeah.

23:58 So bizarre. The, the things that happened in

24:01 this are just really fucking bizarre.

24:04 Oh. No.

24:05 At 11:56 AM, people were starting to post stuff on

24:08 Facebook themselves because they were starting to get really,

24:11 really frustrated. I'm talking parents who are now

24:13 attending the site. Could you imagine?

24:15 They were getting really frustrated and the police were

24:18 doing nothing. They were all standing outside

24:20 and you can see this, the, the parents were taking videos and

24:23 posting them on Facebook. The the they're strolling around

24:26 like it's a friggin Sunday afternoon picnic and.

24:28 Your kids in there like it's that's.

24:30 Awful. It's horrific.

24:32 It's absolutely horrific. At nearly 12:00, a police

24:38 officer pushes a man who's making a phone call outside of

24:41 the school. And this was then posted on

24:43 Facebook as well. And that actually prompted a lot

24:45 more parents to come. So I think this person posted on

24:48 the school's Facebook page and this bloke was saying to the

24:53 police officer there are 6 year old children in there, like is

24:56 somebody get in there and do something?

24:58 Yeah, he's like, turn that off, you know, turn that camera off,

25:01 blah, blah. Oh no.

25:03 They don't know how to defend themselves from a from a shooter

25:05 and Oh my God, just absolutely horrible, horrible stuff.

25:09 Yeah. Well, I mean it was the

25:11 investigation afterwards there was a a quote from the Texas

25:15 House of Representatives that there of the committee that

25:17 investigated all who said systemic failures and egregious

25:20 poor and decision making is what caused the the eventual number

25:27 of deaths. Yes, that Rob Elementary.

25:30 Who just shot him when they got in there 6 minutes or whatever,

25:33 after whatever it was after they, you know, when those first

25:37 three Uvalde police officers, why didn't they fucking shoot

25:40 him there? There's one particular teacher I

25:42 read about where he was. He'd been shot and was bleeding

25:46 extensively. And they were, they put on the

25:50 window like that. He needed help so that they

25:53 could get someone in to do that. And they just decided like that

25:56 they wouldn't let paramedics in. Yeah.

25:58 And they stopped him, stopped getting in there.

26:00 So they did everything they could, the people in the room to

26:02 help him. And it turned out that they

26:05 didn't. The police officers were there.

26:07 They moved him to another room so they could potentially get

26:09 paramedics there easier. And then by the time paramedics

26:13 finally got in there, they pronounced him dead on the

26:16 scene. But if they had got him in the

26:18 original spot, he would have survived.

26:19 He would have survived. It was blood loss.

26:21 Literally he died from blood loss.

26:23 Yeah, and that but could have been very much saved if people

26:27 if the paramedics been allowed to get in sooner.

26:29 Yeah, around, I think it was around 12 o'clock 911 got a

26:34 phone call from a girl, a little girl.

26:36 She ended up then calling back, I think it was three times over

26:40 the course of the next hour or so.

26:44 She had a mobile phone because she used to walk home from

26:46 school on her own, right. And I think she was in the 4th

26:48 grade. And her dad was interviewed in a

26:53 documentary I watched about this.

26:55 And he said listening to these 911 calls that she made are just

27:00 horrifying. Yeah.

27:01 So she's whispering down the phone going, we really need

27:04 help. You can, you can hear.

27:05 You can listen to the modem. And.

27:06 Stuff, they've been released. She's like, we really need help

27:10 this because she was in one of those rooms that we were talking

27:12 about that would join together that had the 100 rounds of

27:15 bullets in. So she would have been

27:16 surrounded by death. Yeah.

27:19 And injury. And she's like, we really need

27:22 help. There's lots of people here who

27:24 are really unwell. And she's a six year old little

27:26 girl. Yeah.

27:27 She was on the phone originally to 911 for like nearly 2 minutes

27:31 that first time. And then somehow the phone got

27:34 disconnected. They, the 911 operator reported

27:39 all of the details that she'd given because they were asking

27:41 her things like how many people are in the room that you're in?

27:43 Do you know what room number you're in?

27:45 Do you know what your teacher's name is and all of this stuff.

27:48 And the 911 operator was relaying this all to whoever,

27:52 you know, on the scene. They were doing nothing with it.

27:54 No, that's what we're saying with the last one.

27:56 You know, having that information from the inside

27:58 helped them to be able to manage that quicker, whereas this one,

28:01 they were getting just as much, if not more information from the

28:04 inside of what was happening and they didn't act on any of it.

28:08 Yeah, there's so many images from this that really stick in

28:11 my mind. And yeah, one of those is, I

28:13 think at about 12 or 7. So about half an hour after the

28:19 gunman entered the building, the first lot of people were able to

28:24 escape. So there was a group of people,

28:28 students and teachers who had gathered in the cafeteria, and

28:32 they obviously found an opportunity to escape.

28:35 And I know one of the images that really sticks in my mind is

28:38 of these little girls running out of the out of there,

28:42 terrified. And you can see police officers

28:45 just like standing around outside.

28:47 Oh, it's it's. It's mind.

28:51 Blowing. Mind boggling?

28:52 Absolutely God. So 12:10 the student, that

28:59 little girl in room 112, she calls back again and she said

29:03 there are so many people in this room that are dead.

29:05 I don't know what to do. Can somebody please help me,

29:09 little girl? The they then try the police

29:12 officers then try to, I don't know, organize something.

29:15 The schools across the road from a Funeral Home and they decide

29:18 to send all of the parents over there and anybody who escapes is

29:21 going to be sent over there first for first aid and and

29:25 treatment. So they sent the ambulances over

29:27 there and all parents, but that even went to shit because, you

29:36 know, a few minutes later they decide that it's not big enough

29:40 or they don't have the facilities there, and then they

29:41 move it to somewhere else. And then they move it to

29:43 somewhere else again later on. It's sort of like as a parent,

29:46 you couldn't even imagine it. 12:15 That same student calls

29:50 911 for the third time, basically saying, I don't

29:54 understand why nobody's helping us.

29:55 There's nobody in here, we are that you need to come and help.

29:59 Like, imagine how desperate you would be.

30:01 You know, I, I can't imagine. I actually can't imagine.

30:05 Oh, this is 40 odd minutes. That's awful.

30:08 That she's been in that situation and you've got to

30:10 remember they were the first. This was the first classroom.

30:12 He went into 40 odd minutes. Ago.

30:14 Yeah. Not to have anyone helping you

30:17 and like such young children, yeah, that's insane.

30:21 Absolutely insane. That student reports that there

30:26 are 8 to 9 people alive in that room, and they need to get there

30:30 now because they're not going to be alive for much.

30:32 Longer I'm like, this is the thing.

30:33 It's a young girl who potentially the And I think I

30:37 believe the teacher in that room had been shot.

30:39 Yeah, you know, this is young children then managing.

30:42 An adult war zone? Well, yeah.

30:43 Like literally an adult could barely.

30:46 This is it. I can't imagine as an adult in

30:47 that when, you know, if I'm the teacher in that room, that's

30:50 like my job to look after all that, you know, kind of thing.

30:52 And that the teacher's not there.

30:53 This is a young student that's doing it.

30:55 And like, trying to like, yeah, make sure her friends, her

30:57 friends stay alive. Yep.

31:00 Oh God. Unbelievable.

31:05 So the members of the Border Patrol tactical unit arrive at

31:08 this point with Shields. Don't go in.

31:11 Don't go in immediately the tactical response.

31:14 Chat Have a chat, see what I. Will do.

31:16 Don't go straight in. So at this point, what are we

31:19 like 45 minutes in to the terror at 12:17, the school district

31:24 now posts on Facebook that there's an active shooter in the

31:27 school. But please everybody stay away.

31:31 Your cooperation is needed at this time by not visiting the

31:34 campus. As soon as more information is

31:35 gathered, it will be shared. The rest of the district is

31:38 under secure status. The they are getting 911 calls

31:46 coming from within the school still from other students,

31:49 people who've able been able to now access like landline phones

31:52 and that kind of thing. They're getting reports of how

31:56 many people are injured, how many people are dead, how many

31:58 people need immediate assistance.

32:01 This still doesn't prompt them to go in.

32:03 Kidding. No, 12:20, there's more gunfire.

32:10 So it kind of paused for a couple of minutes there.

32:13 I'm assuming he was like reloading his gun.

32:15 I don't even know how that happens in an AI field.

32:18 Like whether that takes time or not, I'm not sure.

32:20 But there was a little bit of a pause there where there weren't

32:23 any gunshots. So they were like, well, is it

32:25 over? What's going on?

32:26 Still didn't go in. And then, yeah, they've got

32:29 these. The shots sort of started again.

32:32 This is around the 50 minute mark of of when that all

32:35 happened. Yeah, OK, so students are trying

32:44 to still get out and students and teachers are still trying to

32:47 get out and escape where they possibly can.

32:53 There it's again, the scene is chaos, which it would be.

32:56 It absolutely would be. But, you know, this is where

32:59 we're, this is where we're at. The students are now being taken

33:04 to an auditorium at the high school on the other side of

33:06 town. So the parents are notified

33:08 again via Facebook that, you know, it's not at the Funeral

33:12 Home across the road anymore. You're now going to have to go

33:13 over to the other side of town. They're trying to keep

33:16 separation there. You will be notified to pick up

33:20 your students once they're all accounted for.

33:22 So I just that's, that's flaws me.

33:24 Obviously I would have coordinate like transport of

33:26 these kids like to move them to somewhere else, et cetera.

33:29 However, they can't coordinate themselves to fucking get in

33:32 there and stop this occurring. Look, I I think it's worth

33:35 saying there were police in the building that were just hiding.

33:37 They were doing that. They were.

33:38 Doing like though, because there was no one or thought that no

33:41 authority saying to them shaking down yeah.

33:44 Like, but isn't that like So what?

33:46 So in, in this though, I've listened to, I listened to a

33:52 podcast about Uvalde and it was with a security bloke, right?

34:00 And he was saying that in an active shooter situation,

34:04 regardless of whether it's whether it's at a football

34:09 stadium, at a school, at a house, wherever, if there's an

34:14 active shooter situation, you shoot to kill the perpetrator.

34:19 That is that there's no, there's no do I don't I about it.

34:23 That is what you do. If somebody is actively shooting

34:26 people, you have the authority as a police officer, Yeah, to

34:31 shoot, to kill that person. Apparently, they're.

34:34 What they were told is that, yeah, time is the number one

34:37 enemy in an active shooter response.

34:40 The best hope that innocent victims have is that officers

34:42 immediately move into action to isolate, distract or neutralize

34:47 the threat, even if that means one officer acting alone.

34:50 Yeah, the materials. Sorry.

34:53 And the first responder unwilling to place the lives of

34:56 the innocent above their own safety should consider another

35:00 career field. Yeah.

35:02 So they're, you know, they're trained to be, to put themselves

35:05 in that harm's way to protect the other innocent children

35:09 because I'm they're innocent children.

35:10 They're not even, you know, adults at these, these are

35:13 schools and such young children at these schools.

35:16 They are the priority in those moments.

35:18 Just, you know, we've got to stop this.

35:20 But they weren't doing that. So they weren't following

35:23 through with their training. No, not at all.

35:27 It's just you can't believe that, that you know, after all

35:32 of this, there's been no lessons learnt.

35:35 I, I don't know, after everything that had come, I.

35:37 Think the lesson that's been learnt is that active shooters

35:40 are fucking scary and not even as grown adults do we want to be

35:43 around it. These poor children are having

35:46 to deal with it. Change of fucking gun laws

35:49 change. Like really there is no no other

35:53 answer to this. I mean again, this guy again was

35:56 another one who was whack job, you know, like had some pretty

36:00 serious mental health issues. He he was known for putting up

36:05 videos online of him abusing and killing animals.

36:10 He would live stream them on this.

36:12 I've never heard of this ubo. Yeah, Ubo, yeah.

36:16 But he would live stream him doing this abuse to animals.

36:19 So I mean, people knew that. I mean, that's tick box 1, you

36:22 know? Of red flag.

36:23 Hello. Yeah.

36:25 He's what's to come a little bit.

36:26 So he also was threatening to kidnap and rape girls using the

36:31 same apps and using that ubo. So there was lots going on with

36:37 that. He he also at work where he was

36:40 working at Wendy's, I think it was yeah, one of his Co workers.

36:45 He was incredibly rude to the female Co workers and in

36:48 particular was sending inappropriate messages to one

36:51 one of those Co workers. So people knew that he was not

36:57 quite right, but no one was stepping in with him.

37:01 And but yet he could go and buy guns because he had these guns

37:03 legally. Yeah, he went.

37:05 He was 18 and he went and had to abort them.

37:07 At 18 get an AR15. This is the thing exactly.

37:11 Like, like an assault. Without any question around your

37:15 mental health, yeah, you can just go go yourself an AR15.

37:19 I mean, they're handy, yeah, for daily use.

37:23 Yeah, yeah, totally. Like, what the hell?

37:25 What? The.

37:27 Hell. So we're now sort of down to

37:30 1240, eight. 12:50 PM. And the one of the police

37:37 captains who's on on site, who's now sort of he has started to

37:41 take charge. His name's Joel Bettencourt.

37:45 He actually gives a command to wait.

37:48 So the SWAT team or the special, the people with the Shields are

37:52 ready to go in and he tells them to wait.

37:56 He said the team that's going to make the breach needs to stand

37:59 by. The team that's going to make

38:00 the breach needs to stand by. Why the fuck are we standing by?

38:04 They are armed. They have protection, as much

38:08 protection as they can get. They are trained to do this.

38:11 But he didn't fucking like give the command to go like honestly.

38:18 Just insane. Anyway, the Border Patrol

38:21 officers are the ones who actually ended up gaining

38:23 access. They enter the classroom, they

38:26 pass by the the other police officers, the school district

38:31 police officers. And they shot and killed Ramos

38:38 in the process of that. So it did all come to an end at

38:41 about 12:50 PM. Yeah.

38:43 Way longer than it needed to. Oh.

38:46 So, so, so much longer than it needed to.

38:49 Yeah, so this one is ranked #3 in the US, including, so 22

38:55 killed and 18 injured. His grandmother that he shot

38:59 before he went to do the shooting at the, at the school.

39:03 She ended up surviving. She she actually was shot to the

39:07 in the face and she made her way to her neighbors who got her

39:12 help and she so this is the other part of it.

39:16 There was already at that point where he hadn't even made it to

39:18 the school yet. There was a nine on one call

39:20 going through saying that her son, her grandson had shot her

39:24 that no one was then even already alerted to like, hey, we

39:27 need to be there is already an active shooter in terms of like

39:31 that. He's already shot one person.

39:33 He has a weapon, he's on the move.

39:36 That wasn't even a trigger of, like, putting in things place in

39:39 place of, like, looking for this person immediately.

39:42 So, yeah. So she got the help she needed

39:44 and she survived. So unbelievable.

39:47 Yeah. Absolutely unbelievable.

39:49 Yeah. All right, I'm going to read out

39:50 the names of the students and teachers who were killed.

39:55 We had Nevaeh, Alyssa B10 Jacqueline Jalen Kazares 9.

40:03 McKenna Lee Elrod 10. Jose Manuel Flores Junior, 10.

40:09 Eliana Amaya Garcia, 9. Uzziah Sergio Garcia, 10.

40:15 Amory Joe Garza 10. Javier James Lopez 10.

40:21 Jace Carmelo Luivanos 10. Tess Marie Marta 10.

40:27 Miranda GAIL Mathis 11. Alethia Haven Ramirez 10.

40:34 Annabelle Guadalupe Rodriguez 10.

40:38 Maite Juliana Rodriguez, 10, Alexandria Ania Rubio, 10, Layla

40:46 Marie Salazar, 11, Jayla Nicole Silgiero, 10, Eliana Cruz

40:54 Torres, 10, Rogelio Fernandez Torres, 10 and the teachers were

40:59 Erma Linda Garcia, who was 48, and Eva Mareles, who was 44.

41:05 Now, just before the shooting took place, there was a, an

41:11 assembly and a lot of the parents of the Grade 4 students

41:16 had attended the assembly because a lot of their, a lot of

41:19 their kids were getting awards for different things and for

41:23 just good global citizenship. It was all these things about

41:25 being a good person and things that they'd done over their

41:28 years at elementary school that, you know, they could be really

41:31 proud of. They were very close to the end

41:33 of their elementary school life. Yep.

41:37 And one of the dads was whose daughter did die during this.

41:43 He she received an award and he took a photo of her and her five

41:48 friends, all of whom passed away.

41:49 And it was the last known photo obviously taken of them.

41:52 And it was a mere, you know, less than an hour before they

41:56 died. And he said, you know, she was

41:58 so happy they were they loved being together, you know, as as

42:02 girls in grade 4. Do they love their friends and

42:06 and they loved school? And you know, as we've said in

42:10 the last two episodes as well about all of this, you know, you

42:14 want your kids to go to school and feel safe and have these

42:18 amazing experiences that school affords us.

42:20 But that was robbed for all of the students at this school, not

42:24 just those who passed away. This is it.

42:26 I mean, it's young children. There's so much potential, you

42:29 know, you don't know, you know, who was amongst them of what

42:32 they were going to be and who they were going to grow into.

42:36 And yeah, the potential that's been lost is awful.

42:40 The families would be broken. Yeah.

42:42 Awful. Yeah, horrible.

42:48 Absolutely. Can't even imagine.

42:50 Oh, thank God we live in Australia.

42:52 Yeah. For sure, for sure.

42:56 Oh well, this was a heavy little series.

42:58 We've done well, I think, to knock this out.

43:00 But yeah, some I think so, yeah. It's been heavy.

43:03 Yeah, it has been heavy because you can't help but put yourself

43:07 in that situation. We've got kids who are these

43:09 ages to the thought of even, Oh my God, I can't imagine what

43:13 these parents, Oh no. And teachers and support staff

43:18 from the school, what they would all be going through in in the

43:21 aftermath of this. And it would be with you

43:23 forever. These these things would never

43:25 go away. I mean, I have to say when we do

43:28 regular, you know, lockdown practices and stuff in schools

43:31 and, and every single time we do that because I've, you know,

43:35 with the younger children, you get asked why do we do that?

43:37 And particularly the lockdown ones I find interesting because

43:40 you know the it's. Not a fire, it's.

43:41 Fire, you know you can do it. And they say, well, why do we do

43:44 this? And, and I love here in

43:45 Australia that I struggle to be able to answer that question,

43:48 not because I'm scared of like scaring them, but literally

43:51 struggle to know why would we do it?

43:53 Like we just don't have reasons for it.

43:55 And the biggest one that we as teachers always use, it's like,

43:58 oh, it's in case there's a dog in the, in the, in the

44:00 playground and things that, you know, that's unsafe.

44:02 So we need to keep you all in until we can.

44:04 Yeah, like a feral animal or something.

44:06 Like, or a snake. Yeah, that can happen in

44:08 Australia quite regularly that, you know, we might bring you all

44:10 in because there's a snake in the yard.

44:11 Yeah, it like it doesn't. It's never entered my head that,

44:15 you know, it's someone with a weapon like an AR15 that we

44:19 would need to be locking down for our kids.

44:20 So interesting story when Oliver was in.

44:24 I feel like he must have been in prep.

44:28 Our school did go into lockdown. Yeah, that was a situation at

44:32 another. School at another school.

44:33 That's right. That's probably the closest to

44:35 her needing a lockdown. But they just literally played.

44:37 He was great. Yeah, just played.

44:38 Games. Just played games in the

44:40 classroom, didn't know any different and I asked him.

44:42 So we obviously got notified that that had happened.

44:44 As parents, yeah. And I asked him that day, I'm

44:47 like, oh, did anything happen at school today?

44:48 And he's like, not yeah, yeah. I'm like, OK, cool.

44:51 We'll just leave it at that then.

44:52 I know my staff are asking me, like, what What do we do?

44:54 Like, because we've got such young kids, like, you know,

44:56 yeah, they need to go to the toilet, like.

44:57 And I said, well, let them go. Like, because we've got

44:59 bathrooms, you know, joining to the classrooms and you can see

45:02 them. And so I said, oh, let them go.

45:04 Just don't tell them to flush. Yeah.

45:05 Like, whereas because we're not talking about locking down for a

45:09 gunman. Yeah.

45:10 Like, yeah. Yeah, it's heartbreaking.

45:14 It's heartbreaking. Yeah, yeah.

45:16 All right, well, we're changing tact a little bit in a bit of a

45:21 different way for our next episode.

45:23 So for those of you who know the Teachers Pet podcast, yeah,

45:28 which was, Oh my God, I was listening to that back when it

45:32 was actually available. I mean, it's available again

45:35 now, but I was listening to that week on week.

45:38 Lucas was a baby. So I know it was in 2017 that it

45:41 came out and I was like feeding him in the middle of the night

45:44 and listening to the Teachers Pet Soothing.

45:46 Soothing for the middle of the night.

45:48 Totally. So we're going.

45:51 To be having said that, the dulcet tones of Hedley Thomas

45:54 will help you in that situation I think too it's.

45:57 Got quite the soothing, yeah, soothing voice.

45:59 So, yeah, we're going to be talking about Lynette Sims next

46:03 week and the case of the Teacher's Pet and everything

46:07 that goes with it. So we're gonna bring you A2

46:09 parter about that one. Yeah.

46:10 There's so much to unpack. All that sort of stuff, yeah.

46:14 We'll go over all that. Yeah, there's a lot.

46:16 Oh, there's. So much.

46:17 I mean, have you started researching for that?

46:19 Same. I'm like, I'm like, I've done a

46:21 lot and I'm like, I'm still not doing, not even the trials.

46:23 Yeah, same. Same.

46:25 All right, we've got a lot to do in the next week.

46:26 Yeah, All right, let's get to it.

46:28 But first of all, let's go down and have a nice weekend away.

46:31 Wine. Wine.

46:33 All right. Thank you for joining us,

46:35 everybody. Stay curious, crying besties.

46:37 I'm taking that back because I'm saying instead of Emma like she

46:39 had before. So.

46:40 Oh. Yeah, fair.

46:41 Yeah. Hi everyone.