Timeline of the Uvalde Shooting: A System Failure

O n May 24, 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, were killed by a gunman in their Robb Elementary School classrooms. At the initial press conferences, Governor Greg Abbott praised the heroism and swift action of the police and first responders. Since then, however, state agencies have shared details and an amended timeline that call into question the decision-making and training of officers at the scene. What follows is intended as a comprehensive reference, primarily based on the thorough reporting of Texas news outlets, about what is known, to date, about that timeline.

Author’s note: Links to the source material are provided below. Time before or after the gunman enters the school appears in brackets [GE +/−] next to events on the timeline.

Timeline:

• 11:10–11:21 a.m. The gunman shoots his 66-year-old grandmother. [GE −23 min]
• 11:21 a.m. The gunman sends a text to a girl in Germany, confirming he shot his grandmother. [GE −12 min]
• 11:28 a.m. The gunman drives two blocks to Robb Elementary, where he crashes into a drainage ditch. He gets out of the car with an AR-15–derived rifle and a backpack laden with ammo. [GE −5 min]
  • A Robb Elementary teacher observes the crash and the gunman’s approach while retrieving her lunch from her car, and runs back to the school to get her phone.
  • Two funeral-home employees approach the accident scene to offer help. Gunman shoots at them, forcing them to flee.
• 11:29 a.m. The teacher comes back outside, calling 911. She observes the gunman scale the perimeter fence and retreats inside, shutting the door behind her. (Note: Her closing the door is a fairly new revelation. Early reports said it was propped open by a chair or rock. Instead, it appears the door was closed by the teacher but that it failed to secure.) [GE −4 min]
• 11:31 a.m. The gunman hides behind vehicles as a police officer drives past looking for the suspect. The officer mistakenly pursues a teacher, believing her to be the suspect, during which time the gunman approaches the building and fires into the windows. [GE −2 min]
• 11:33 a.m. The gunman enters the school building. Before entering classrooms 111 and 112, he shoots dozens of rounds into the rooms and enters, closing the door(s) behind. (Note: Classrooms 111 and 112 use the same recessed entrance area, meaning video of the event from the northmost point fails to establish for certain at any given time which door is used and shot at. The classrooms are connected by a door within.) [GE +0 min]

• 11:35 a.m. Seven police officers arrive, two with rifles. Three, from the Uvalde Police Department, enter through the exterior door the gunman used. The other four, two of them Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) officers, including Chief Pete Arredondo, enter through the similarly unlocked south entrance at the other end of the hallway. (Note: The UCISD maintains its own six-man police department.) The seven officers converge on rooms 111 and 112, at which point the gunman opens fire through the closed door — two officers are allegedly grazed by the volley, and the seven decide to wait for backup. (Note: It is the expectation that in an active-shooter scenario police do not hang back but instead “go to the sound of the guns,” as security and law-enforcement analyst James Gagliano told NR’s Brittany Bernstein in a recent interview.) [GE +2 min]
• 11:41 a.m. Dispatch asks officers if the classroom door is locked. The response from a Uvalde officer at the scene is, “I am not sure, but we have a hooligan (Halligan bar) to break it.” (Note: The classroom doors could only be locked with a key from the exterior. A locksmith brought in by Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed that the lock was functional, but it failed to marry to the strike plate, so the door would not secure, per DPS director Steve McCraw.) [GE +8 min]
• 11:48 a.m. UCISD Officer Ruiz reports that his wife Eva Mireles, a teacher in one of the classrooms, has been shot. Ruiz moves into the hallway and is disarmed and dismissed from the scene. [GE +15 min]
• 11:52 a.m. The first ballistic shield is brought on scene. [GE +19 min]

• 11:58 a.m. A DPS special agent is heard to say, “It sounds like a hostage rescue situation. Sounds like a rescue. They should probably go in.” [GE +25 min]
• 12:03 p.m. A child in room 112 calls 911 and whispers her location. [GE +30 min]
• 12:09 p.m. A request is made for a master key. [GE +36 min]
• 12:10 p.m. The child in room 112 calls 911 again and reports multiple people dead. Members of Bortac (Border Patrol tactical) begin to arrive. [GE +37 min]
• 12:14 p.m. UCISD chief Arredondo calls for a sniper on the east roof. [GE +41 min]
• 12:16 p.m. The 911 caller from room 112 reports eight or nine people still alive. [GE +43 min]
• 12:19 p.m. A student in room 111 calls 911 but hangs up when another student instructs her to. [GE +46 min]
• 12:21 p.m. Chief Arredondo asks for a breaching tool. [GE +48 min]
• 12:28 p.m. Chief Arredondo requests keys and starts testing them in doors other than rooms 111 and 112. Arredondo later says he was searching for a master key. [GE +55 min]
• 12:35 p.m. A halligan bar is brought into the building. [GE +62 min]
• 12:36 p.m. The child in room 111 contacts a dispatcher and reports that the gunman has fired into the classroom door. The child is asked to stay on the line and keep quiet. The call lasts 21 seconds. [GE +63 min]
• 12:43 p.m. The room 111 caller once again contacts 911 and asks for immediate police action. She calls back three minutes later to say she can hear officers next door. [GE +70 min]
• 12:47 p.m. A sledgehammer is brought in from the east hallway. [GE +74 min]
• 12:50 p.m. Officers enter the classrooms. (There are conflicting reports about how they did so. The Washington Post reports a key was used, while McCraw’s testimony implies a breach by more violent means was made — the sledgehammer, the Halligan bar, or a combination of the two.) The gunman is killed in room 111 (although this too — whether it was 111 or 112 — is uncertain). Nineteen children and two teachers are dead, with a further 17 injured. DPS director McCraw confirmed that at least one of the callers survived, but provided no further details. [GE +77 min]

The reported events, times, and means may need to be further updated, as open-records requests, full transcripts, and investigations are pending.

Sources: San Antonio Express-News, DPS director McCraw’s testimony (full video), Texas Department of Public Safety, Rolling Stone, ABC News, Houston Chronicle, Washington Post.

In Summary:

A pair of malfunctioning doors gave the gunman easy access to the building. A teacher who had propped the door open to retrieve her lunch saw him and shut the door behind her as she called 911. The door did not lock as designed. Sources: Forbes, Associated Press, San Antonio Express-News.

Police could have availed themselves of the same unsecured doors if they had tried them, making the need for keys or a Halligan bar moot. Sources: San Antonio Express-News, New York Times, KSAT12.

Arredondo, chief of the school-district police, has been placed on administrative leave. He was the first to arrive at the scene; by rank and time of arrival, he was in command. Instead of treating the situation like an active-shooter scenario, which demands immediate action to halt the shooter (an aggressive posture), Arredondo operated as if it were a hostage situation (a defensive posture). Sources: AP, New York Times, KSAT12, Texas Tribune, report by the Columbine Review Commission, pp. 67–68.

Missed Opportunity:

It was initially reported that an officer accosted the gunman as he entered the property. This was later found to be false. The gunman met no resistance other than a fence, which he scaled. An officer drove past the gunman when he mistook someone else for the suspect but who was in fact a teacher. Source: San Antonio Express-News.