Police – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

An exterior door at Robb Elementary Faculty didn't lock when it was closed by a trainer shortly earlier than a gunman used it to get inside and kill 19 students and two academics, leaving investigators searching to find out why, state police mentioned Tuesday.

State police initially mentioned a instructor had propped the door open shortly earlier than the shooter entered the college in Uvalde, Texas, on Might 24.

They have now determined that the trainer, who has not been recognized, propped the door open with a rock, but then eliminated the rock and closed the door when she realized there was a shooter on campus, mentioned Travis Considine, chief communications officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety. But, Considine stated, the door didn't lock.

“We did verify she closed the door. The door did not lock. We know that much and now investigators are trying into why it did not lock,” Considine mentioned.

Investigators confirmed the detail by extra video footage reviewed since last Friday’s information convention when authorities first mentioned that the door had been left propped open. Authorities didn't state at the moment what had been used to prop open the door.

Considine stated the trainer initially propped the door open but ran again inside to get her phone and name 911 when the gunman crashed his truck on campus.

“She got here back out while on her cellphone, she heard somebody yell, ‘He has a gun!’, she saw him leap the fence and that he had a gun, so she ran back inside,” removing the rock when she did, Considine said.

San Antonio lawyer Don Flanary informed the San Antonio Specific-Information that the Robb Elementary School worker, whom he’s not naming, closed the door shut after realizing that a gunman was on the free. She had initially propped it open to carry food from a automotive to a classroom, the attorney said.

“She kicked the rock away when she went again in. She remembers pulling the door closed while telling 911 that he was shooting,” Flanary told the newspaper.

Funerals are deliberate for the following two-and-a-half weeks for the 19 youngsters and two lecturers who were killed in that classroom on Might 24.

“She thought the door would lock as a result of that door is always imagined to be locked,” Flanary said.

Flanary did not instantly return telephone messages left at his workplace from The Associated Press.

Investigators are also still making an attempt to interview Uvalde Consolidated Impartial Faculty District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who state police have mentioned was the commander of the varsity taking pictures scene while it happened.

Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, has stated Arredondo handled the energetic scene as a hostage situation and as if youngsters had been now not in danger, whereas 19 police officers waited in the college hallway outside the classroom the place the shooter was.

McCraw called that the “wrong decision,” saying the main target of the investigation has shifted to Arredondo and the police response.

Other officers in the Uvalde city and faculties police departments continue to sit for interviews and supply statements, but Arredondo has not responded to DPS requests for 2 days, Considine stated.