Following last week’s shooting in Uvalde, Texas, one of the students who survived the event recounted his experience to CNN.
According to 9-year-old Daniel and his mother, Briana Ruiz, after not being able to enter the student’s classroom, the 18-year-old gunman fired several shots into the door, hitting his teacher and a classmate.
Daniel said he could see the gunman through the window in the door, and he was able to survive by “hiding under a table next to the wall.”
The shooter, Salvador Ramos, killed 19 students and two teachers on May 24.
“I could still see his face,” said Daniel. “I could see him staring at people in front of me.”
Daniel eventually escaped by climbing out of a broken window and injured his hand on some glass. He also stated that the two people in his class who were hurt would survive.
However, Ellie Garcia, his cousin, was in the classroom where Ramos fatally shot the dozens of children and teachers.
The authorities are still working to establish all of the shooting details. Parents and families were upset at how long it took for law enforcement to enter the classroom where Ramos was barricaded.
Nearly 20 officers were outside the room, but the police waited for 40 minutes for “further assistance” before entering.
A 24-year-old bystander, Juan Carranza, recalled waiting outside a house across the street when he overheard women yelling, “Go in there!” at the officers. “Go there!”
Colonel Steven McCraw stated that the on-site commander and the chief of the school district’s police department made the mistake of assuming Ramos was locked inside and that students were no longer in danger, allowing police time to plan an attack.
“With the benefit of hindsight, where I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision. It was a wrong decision, period,” McGraw said. “There’s no excuse for that, but again, I wasn’t there.”
