The uncle of the teenage shooter who killed 19 students and two teachers in a Uvalde school shooting has asked police for help to calm his nephew, according to a trove of records and audio recordings released by the city.
Armando Ramos, the uncle of the gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, told police his nephew always listened to him and that if he could talk he might be able to convince him to stop shooting, according to a 911 call made public Saturday.
“He might listen to me because he hears me and he listens to everything I say,” Ramos explained to the dispatcher.
“Maybe he can do something to resign or turn himself in,” he added, his voice trembling.
The uncle told the correspondent that the shooter had been at their home the night before, and that his nephew had been in his room all night and was upset because his grandmother had been “haunting” him.
“Oh, God, please don’t do anything stupid. I think he’s shooting kids,” Ramos said in a panic over the phone.
The call came in around 1 p.m. on May 24, 2022, 10 minutes after the shooting had stopped and Ramos was already dead.
Call records and police video from the May 24, 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary School were released by Uvalde city officials this weekend after a lengthy legal battle.
The records were released in response to a lawsuit filed by The Associated Press and other news organizations after city officials refused to release documents related to the shooting.
The law enforcement response to the scene, in which some 400 officers waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the shooter, has been widely condemned as a huge tactical and moral failure.
A law enforcement team including about 150 U.S. Border Patrol agents and 91 state, school and city troopers waited in the hallways while desperate students inside classrooms called 911 on their cellphones and parents outside pleaded with police to intervene.
Shocking video taken from the scene showed officers, some equipped with rifles and ballistic shields, roaming the hallways while the gunman was inside a classroom, targeting students and teachers.
A tactical team eventually entered the room and shot and killed Salvador Ramos at approximately 12:50 p.m.
Former Uvalde Schools Police Chief Pete Arredonda and former school employee Adrian Gonzalez have pleaded not guilty to multiple felony charges of child abandonment and child endangerment in connection with the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
In an interview with CNN this week, Arredondo claimed he had been “scapegoated” for the failed response.
A state trooper in Uvalde, Texas, who was suspended over the controversy, was reinstated this month.
Despite the massive protests, a city-commissioned report praised the officers for their “immense strength” and “calm thinking” as they confronted the gunman.
When the victim’s parents heard the report’s findings in March, they cried and called city officials “cowards.”
“You said they did it in good faith. You call that good faith? They stood there for 77 minutes,” Kimberly Mata Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter, Lexi, was killed by the shooter, said after the presentation.
The victims’ parents have also called for more officers to be prosecuted and have filed lawsuits at the federal and state levels against police, social media, online gaming companies and the manufacturer of the rifle used by the shooter.
With post wire
