He was the only survivor in his classroom: Two weeks after the massacre at a school in the small Texan town of Uvalde, a teacher described the attack to US broadcaster ABC.
Arnulfo Reyes was with his students in Room 111 at Robb Elementary School when an armed 18-year-old entered the classroom and opened fire. When the shooting was over, everyone in room 111 was dead except for Reyes. In an interview for ABC’s “Good Morning America,” the teacher reported on the horror that took place at the elementary school on May 24 — and his growing anger at police officers.
“Quickly under the table”
The children first attended an end-of-year celebration that day and some went home afterwards, Reyes told the broadcaster from a hospital in San Antonio, where he is recovering from his gunshot wounds. He watched a film with those who stayed at school. Suddenly shots were heard and the students asked him what was going on.
“And I said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, but get under the table, quick. Go under the table and pretend you’re asleep,'” Reyes recalled to ABC. “When they did that and I gathered them under the table and told them to pretend to sleep, I turned around and saw him standing there.”
The 18-year-old had come over from room 112 connected to room 111 and immediately opened fire, according to ABC. A bullet pierced Reyes’ arm and lung, another hit his back. After that he couldn’t move and the attacker pointed his gun at the children, the teacher said.
Emergency services could be heard outside the classroom and a child in another room begged the police for help, the teacher reported. But she had already retreated into a corridor by that point, Reyes believes: “One of the students from the classroom next door said, ‘Officer, we’re in here. We’re in here. But they were already gone.”
The shooter then went back to room 112. “He got up from my desk, walked over there and shot again,” Reyes explained. The next time he heard the officers, they told the assassin to come out and that they just wanted to talk and wouldn’t hurt him. Finally, the emergency services broke open the door and shot the attacker.
“I remember the border patrol saying, ‘Get up, get up’ and I couldn’t get up,” Reyes said. Eleven fourth-grade students were with him in the classroom. The 18-year-old killed them all. He also shot eight children and two teachers in the neighboring classroom.
Reyes wants to ‘never forgive’ police in Uvalde
Reyes sharply criticized the emergency services, who had taken more than an hour to eliminate the attacker: after everything that had happened, the hesitation of the police made him even angrier. “You have a bulletproof vest. I had nothing,” the teacher said. The job of the police is to protect and to serve and there is no excuse for their actions. “I will never forgive them.”
Reyes also addressed the victims’ parents in the interview: “I’m sorry, I did my best as I was told, please don’t be mad at me,” he said through tears. “It all happened too fast. Training, no training, all kinds of training — nothing prepares you for that.”
School staff taught students to hide under tables in such cases, Reyes explained. And that’s what he thought of at that moment. But in fact they would have made the children “easy prey” for the shooter.
“You can train us as much as you want, but … the laws have to change,” urged the teacher. Unless gun laws are tightened, nothing will ever change. “Nobody in this world deserved that kind of pain. … Nobody deserved that,” he told ABC. “I will go to the ends of the earth to make sure things change.
Sources: ABC, CNN, “People”
