A mother who ran into Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, to rescue her two children while a gunman was slaughtering 19 children and two teachers slammed the police response and asserted that they “could have saved more” kids.
Angeli Gomez, a farm worker, told CBS News last week that she was alerted of the shooting by her mother while she was at work. Gomez said she immediately jumped in her car and barreled down the road at about 100 miles per hour until she reached the school.
“Right away as I parked, U.S. Marshals started coming toward my car saying that I wasn’t allowed to be parked there. And they said, ‘Well, we’re going to have to arrest you because you’re being very uncooperative.’ So I said, ‘Well, you’re going to have to arrest me because I’m going in there and I’m telling you right now, I don’t see none of ya’ll in there.”
“Ya’ll are standing there with snipers and ya’ll are far away. If ya’ll don’t go in there, I’m going in there,’” she recalled telling the Marshals. “He immediately put me in cuffs.”
Local Uvalde police directed the Marshals to uncuff Gomez, at which point she immediately ran toward the school. Gomez said she jumped a fence and sprinted to her son’s classroom, where she communicated with his teacher about the situation.
“[The teacher] was like, ‘Do you think we have time to get out?’ I said, ‘Ya’ll have time, I’m going to run for my other son,’” she continued.
On the way, Gomez said she encountered more officers who again tried to stop her.
“So I start yelling and I’m being uncooperative and I’m like, ‘Well, ya’ll aren’t doing sh-t. What are you doing? Ya’ll need to be in here,’” Gomez added. “I started paying attention to how far the shots were being so that I knew the shooter was all the way by my first son’s class.”
Gomez said when she finally reached her second son’s classroom, the teacher didn’t want to open the door. Eventually, Gomez saw her second son’s classroom door was being opened, so she sprinted inside and grabbed her child.
“There was not one officer inside the school when I ran to my second son’s class. There was not one officer. You could hear the gunshots. It was still active,” she said. “The gunshots were still active. [The police] were not in there. There was no one in there. If anything, when I pulled up, my car was closer to the school than the snipers and everybody that was laying on the ground were.”
CBS News correspondent Lilia Luciano asked Gomez what her reaction was when she heard reports that it took police nearly an hour to enter the school.
“I don’t know. I was just thinking that they could have saved many more lives. They could have gone into that classroom and maybe two or three would have been gone, but they could have saved more,” Gomez said, holding back tears. “They could have done something. Gone through the window, sniped him through the window. I mean, something. But nothing was being done. If anything, they were being more aggressive on us parents that were willing to go in there.”
“I told one of the officers, ‘I don’t need you to protect me. Get away from me. I don’t need your protection. If anything, I need you to go in there with me to go protect my kids,’” she added.
