Police – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Price

An exterior door at Robb Elementary School did not lock when it was closed by a trainer shortly earlier than a gunman used it to get inside and kill 19 college students and two teachers, leaving investigators looking to find out why, state police said Tuesday.

State police initially said a trainer had propped the door open shortly before the shooter entered the school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.

They've now determined that the trainer, who has not been identified, propped the door open with a rock, however 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 Security. However, Considine said, the door didn't lock.

“We did verify she closed the door. The door did not lock. We know that a lot and now investigators are looking into why it didn't lock,” Considine mentioned.

Investigators confirmed the detail via further video footage reviewed since last Friday’s news conference when authorities first mentioned that the door had been left propped open. Authorities didn't state at that time what had been used to prop open the door.

Considine stated the teacher initially propped the door open but ran back inside to get her cellphone and call 911 when the gunman crashed his truck on campus.

“She came again out whereas on her phone, she heard someone yell, ‘He has a gun!’, she noticed him leap the fence and that he had a gun, so she ran again inside,” eradicating the rock when she did, Considine said.

San Antonio attorney Don Flanary told the San Antonio Express-News that the Robb Elementary College worker, whom he’s not naming, closed the door shut after realizing that a gunman was on the unfastened. She had initially propped it open to hold meals from a automotive to a classroom, the attorney mentioned.

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

Funerals are deliberate for the following two-and-a-half weeks for the 19 children and two teachers who were killed in that classroom on Could 24.

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

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

Investigators are also still trying to interview Uvalde Consolidated Independent Faculty District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who state police have said was the commander of the school capturing scene while it occurred.

Steven McCraw, the top of the Texas Department of Public Safety, has stated Arredondo handled the lively scene as a hostage scenario and as if children were no longer at risk, whereas 19 cops waited within the college hallway outside the classroom the place the shooter was.

McCraw referred to as that the “wrong decision,” saying the focus of the investigation has shifted to Arredondo and the police response.

Different officers in the Uvalde city and colleges police departments continue to sit down for interviews and provide statements, but Arredondo has not responded to DPS requests for 2 days, Considine stated.