The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-28)

SATURDAY, MAY 28 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU A

Texas school shooting

for backup to get us out to safety.”

After the gunman was shot

and killed by police, Daniel said,

police officers were also unable

to open the door that his teacher

had jammed with the key. Offi-

cers then broke out the windows

in the room so Daniel and his

classmates could crawl outside,

leaving shards of glass in the

palms of their hands.

Daniel watched as police also

broke the windows out of the

neighboring classroom.

But Daniel said only four stu-

dents crawled out, his first sign

that his cousin, 9-year-old Ellie

Garcia, did not survive. Ruiz said

Daniel often stood up for Ellie

when she was bullied at school,

and now he feels guilty that he

survived but she did not.

By telling his story to a report-

er, Ruiz hopes that it will make

Daniel feel comfortable talking

about his feelings with a psychol-

ogist. At a news conference Fri-

day, Gov. Greg Abbott promised

that anyone in Uvalde will be

able to receive free mental health

services.

Since Tuesday, Ruiz said Dan-

iel sleeps in her bed and wakes up

with nightmares.

On Wednesday night, Ruiz and

Daniel sat down and looked at

the photos of all the students

who died that day. Daniel point-

ed to photographs of one of his

best friends and nine other

friends who were among the

victims.

Even though Daniel lives in a

cramped trailer with his sister

and brother, Ruiz said, he has yet

to set foot in the room that

contains his gaming equipment.

His two favorite video games

used to be “Fortnite” and “War

Game.”

Asked why he no longer plays

his video games, Daniel dropped

his head and said, “I don’t l ike the

gunshots and stuff.”

Ye t despite his trauma, Ruiz is

confident Daniel will grow up

knowing that he is also a hero.

“He feels that his friends and

his classmates, at that moment,

were being very brave even as

they were so scared,” Ruiz said.

“He kept saying, ‘We did good,

Mom. We did good. We stayed

quiet.’ ”

Ruiz, meanwhile, faced her

own nightmare outside the

school.

When she was a teacher’s aide,

Ruiz also worked at the junior

high school. During the 2014-

2015 school year, Ruiz said, Ra-

mos was in her class.

The morning of the shooting,

Ruiz attended Daniel’s awards

ceremony at Robb Elementary

School. She had just driven away

when she got a phone call from

her father alerting her about a

disturbance at the school.

“He said, ‘You need to get to

the school now, there is someone

shooting, and they say there is

someone running with guns on

the outside,’ ” Ruiz said.

As she stood outside the

school, Ruiz and other parents

were confused as to why police

officers at the scene were not

entering the building to confront

the gunman. She watched pan-

icked fathers attempt to tear

down a fence to enter the school

to rescue their children. Ruiz and

other mothers started screaming

at anyone they could find, de-

manding answers about what

was going on inside the school.

“I kept telling them, ‘That is

his building. That is his build-

ing,’ ” Ruiz said as she saw offi-

cers start aiming their weapons

at the section of the school that

included Daniel’s classroom. “A ll

I kept thinking is I should have

just brought him home with me”

after the awards ceremony.

Over the next hour, Ruiz

watched as students in other

sections of the school either fled

or were evacuated to safety by

police. But Daniel’s cousin never

emerged.

Meanwhile, inside the school,

Daniel said, eventually the gun-

man stopped firing his weapons.

Daniel thinks he hid in a nearby

classroom until police arrived.

“We could hear a cop telling

him to come out and stuff,”

Daniel said. “We heard the cop

say, ‘Put your handgun down,

and put the rest of your guns

down, and come out of the class-

room.’ ”

“We could hear the shooter say

something in Spanish,” Daniel

added. “A nd then we heard like

two gunshots, and the cop calling

next to us.”

During the gunfire, Daniel’s

teacher was shot twice but sur-

vived.

On Wednesday, Texas law en-

forcement officials said it took

about an hour for police officers

to find and shoot the gunman

and rescue the students. Daniel

believes it took about 2 hours for

his classroom to be evacuated.

While they waited for help,

Daniel said he heard his injured

classmate softly ask the teacher

to “call 911” because she “was

bleeding a lot.” But for much of

the time, Daniel said, the injured

student neither cried nor spoke.

Daniel’s teacher, meanwhile,

was lying on the floor where she

had been shot.

“She had some blood on her,

but she was, like, whispering,

‘Stay calm. Stay where you are.

Don’t move,’ ” Daniel recalled.

He said that some students

whispered back to the teacher

asking whether she was okay.

But most of the time, the

students just did what the teach-

er asked them to do. They stayed

quiet.

Then, Daniel said, he could

hear the gunman make his way

down the hall, firing into another

classroom.

About 15 minutes after the

shooting began, Daniel said, he

saw the gunman approach his

classroom door.

Ramos i nitially tugged at the

door handle but was apparently

unable to open it. Daniel also told

his mother that Ramos made

mocking hand gestures toward

the students in his classroom.

Then Ramos fired through the

door’s glass window.

Daniel described the bullets as

being “hot” as they bounced

around the classroom. A frag-

ment of one of those bullets

slammed into his classmate’s

nose. Daniel was close enough to

hear the “crunching” sound as it

struck the student.

“He then shot like two or three

bullets, and then the glass broke,

but, like, a bullet hit the wall, and

bounced off and tried to hit us,

but it hit her nose,” Daniel said.

“He then shot like two more

bullets, and then he stopped and

then went back to the classroom

just minutes after his class com-

pleted an awards ceremony

marking the end of the school

year.

As they were returning to their

classroom, Daniel heard gun-

shots coming from the hallway

near a back door that the gun-

man apparently used to enter the

building. Immediately, Daniel

said, his teacher rushed to the

door and inserted a key, appar-

ently breaking it in such a way

that the door jammed, he said.

The teacher also turned off the

lights and urged her students to

dive under their desks or crawl

into the corner.

“We just ran to get to cover,”

Daniel said.

Crouched under a classroom

table, Daniel could see his class-

room door.

Initially, Daniel said, he could

hear the gunman firing on an-

other classroom at the end of a

hallway. Ruiz said there are

about eight classrooms in that

wing of the school, but several

were probably unoccupied be-

cause students were at lunch or

in gym class.

Still, no one screamed. For
more than an hour while he
waited to be rescued, Daniel
heard only occasional sobbing
and hushed instructions from his
injured teacher to stay quiet.
“I was scared and nervous,
because the bullets almost hit
me,” said Daniel, who is being
identified only by his first name
because he is a minor. “Some of
us, the ones thinking he could see
us, they acted like we got shot
and stuff. They were playing
dead.”
In an interview authorized by
his mother, Daniel provided an
account of survival to The Wash-
ington Post, saying he wanted to
highlight the heroism of the
students in his fourth-grade
class. Daniel said his classroom
was one of a handful the gunman
fired into on Tuesday, and he
believes quick action by his
teacher saved his life. At a news
conference this week, officials
said the bulk of the deaths and
injuries occurred in Rooms 111
and 112. Daniel was hiding in
Room 109.
Daniel’s mother, Briana Ruiz,
agreed to let her son be inter-
viewed because she wanted the
world to know the Uvalde stu-
dents face an agonizing journey
as they struggle to recover from
the tragedy. (Ruiz and her son do
not have the same last name.)
Since police rescued him by
breaking out the classroom win-
dows and having him crawl
through glass to safety, Daniel
has been awakened by night-
mares. He refuses to play his
beloved video games and mostly
stays quiet. His favorite cousin,
and 10 other close friends, were
among those who were killed
earlier this week.
“The child that made it home,
thankfully they are here. But
mentally and emotionally, a p iece
of that child that left their home
that morning never came back
with them,” said Ruiz, 3 1, a
former teacher’s aide at Robb
Elementary School. “They are
traumatized, and they have to
deal with it for the rest of their
lives.”
Daniel’s terrifying day began

CLASS FROM A

Student recounts scene inside a Uvalde classroom as bullets bounced around

JOSHUA LOTT/THE WASHINGTON POST

Robb Elementary School fourth-grader Daniel at his home on Thursday in Uvalde, Tex. D aniel’s

classroom was hit with gunfire, leaving his teacher and one of his classmates injured.

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