4th grade survivor of Texas college capturing describes gunman’s words before opening hearth

Survivors of the Texas elementary faculty taking pictures are recounting the gunman's eerie last phrases of "Good evening" and "You're all gonna die" before opening hearth, and how some played lifeless to be spared in the spray of bullets.

Fourth grade student Miah Cerrillo, 11, told CNN her class was watching “Lilo and Sew” when the shooter appeared Tuesday at Robb Elementary in Uvalde.

She mentioned the gunman checked out one in every of her lecturers within the eye and mentioned, “Good night” earlier than taking pictures her.

Miah advised her story via a CNN producer. She did not need to converse on digicam and declined to talk to any men following her experience with the college taking pictures and solely felt comfortable chatting with ladies, the broadcaster said. NBC News could not immediately verify the account.

Miah herself was hit by fragments in the hail of bullets, CNN reported.

After firing shots in her classroom, the shooter went into the adjoining classroom and opened hearth, Miah mentioned. She mentioned she heard “unhappy music” taking part in, believing the gunman put it on. 

When asked what the music was, she stated it appeared like, “I want folks to die music.”

Miah said that when the gunman went into the opposite room she smeared a friend’s blood on herself to look lifeless. She additionally mentioned she and a buddy grabbed their instructor’s phone and known as 911, telling a dispatcher, “Please send assist as a result of we’re in trouble.” 

Within the Tuesday horror, 19 youngsters and two lecturers were killed, and another 17 were wounded.

A Robb Elementary trainer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, advised NBC News that a Raptor alert, a program designed to alert staff of a lockdown, went off after shots had been fired and kids began to cover underneath their desks within the class. 

Samuel Salinas, 10, was a student in teacher Irma Garcia’s class on Tuesday when the college capturing unfolded.

“It was a standard day until my teacher stated we’re on extreme lockdown” and “then there was shooting within the home windows,” he mentioned in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Friday.

He mentioned that the gunman barged into the classroom, introduced, “You’re all gonna die,” after which began to shoot. 

“He shot the instructor and then he shot the youngsters,” Samuel said. 

He explained that he survived by playing dead after he got hit in the leg with shrapnel that hit a chair between him and the shooter.

“I believe he was aiming at me,” Samuel mentioned. “I performed dead so he wouldn’t shoot me.”

When police lastly entered the room and shot the gunman, the kids were evacuated. Within the rushed exit, Samuel saw the bodies of his trainer and different pupils.

“There was blood on the ground,” he mentioned. “And there were youngsters ... full of blood.” 

The investigation into the taking pictures is ongoing, and plenty of questions stay as to why it took police so lengthy to take out the gunman.

The shooter, Salvador Ramos, 18, was killed at the scene.

In a information conference Thursday, Texas officers walked again beforehand launched data, saying the gunman wasn’t confronted by a school police officer and entered the college building unobstructed.

Police now say it took over an hour from the first 911 name to stop the bloodbath.

Officers shared a new timeline revealing that at 11:28 a.m. Tuesday the gunman crashed a car close to the college and shot at two people exterior a funeral dwelling throughout the road, then climbed over a fence to Robb Elementary.

Officers mentioned the primary 911 name got here in at 11:30 a.m., the gunman entered the college 10 minutes later and 4 minutes later police were on the scene. The first officers on the scene called for backup, but tactical teams didn’t arrive till about an hour later, Victor Escalon, the South Texas regional director for the state Department of Public Security, stated Thursday.

Texas investigators told NBC News victims of the taking pictures were present in 4 school rooms.

Robb Elementary serves second by fourth grade students within the small city of Uvalde, which is about 75 miles from the Mexico borders and home to a big Latino community.

Dad and mom and family members who had been gathered outside Robb Elementary in the course of the shooting begged and shouted at police to enter and defend their children.

Angeli Rose Gomez advised The Wall Road Journal she was handcuffed by U.S. marshals exterior the school for repeatedly demanding police enter the college. 

“The police were doing nothing,” she stated to the paper. “They were simply standing exterior the fence. They weren’t getting in there or running anywhere.” 

She mentioned at first she waited patiently then when she turned extra fervent together with her pleas, U.S. marshals allegedly arrested her for intervening in an active investigation. 

Marshals advised NBC Information in a press release that deputy marshals “never arrested or placed anyone in handcuffs while securing the crime scene perimeter.”

“Our deputy marshals maintained order and peace in the midst of the grief-stricken group that was gathering across the college."

Marlene Lenthang is a breaking information reporter for NBC News Digital.

Pete Williams and Jonathan Dienst contributed.