Police – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Price

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 lecturers, leaving investigators searching to find out why, state police said Tuesday.

State police initially stated a trainer had propped the door open shortly before the shooter entered the college in Uvalde, Texas, on Could 24.

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

“We did confirm she closed the door. The door did not lock. We all know that much and now investigators are wanting into why it didn't lock,” Considine said.

Investigators confirmed the element by way of extra video footage reviewed since last Friday’s information convention when authorities first said 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 said the trainer initially propped the door open however ran back inside to get her cellphone and call 911 when the gunman crashed his truck on campus.

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

San Antonio legal professional Don Flanary told the San Antonio Specific-Information 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 legal professional stated.

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

Funerals are deliberate for the subsequent two-and-a-half weeks for the 19 children and two academics 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 alleged to be locked,” Flanary stated.

Flanary didn't immediately return telephone messages left at his workplace from The Associated Press.

Investigators are additionally still trying to interview Uvalde Consolidated Impartial School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who state police have said was the commander of the school shooting scene whereas it occurred.

Steven McCraw, the pinnacle of the Texas Division of Public Security, has mentioned Arredondo handled the lively scene as a hostage scenario and as if children were no longer at risk, while 19 police officers waited in the school hallway outdoors the classroom where the shooter was.

McCraw known as that the “mistaken resolution,” saying the focus of the investigation has shifted to Arredondo and the police response.

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