Video shows moment Uvalde officer learns his wife was shot, Texas Rep. says

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The surveillance video showing the Robb Elementary School shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers is putting into focus testimony given by the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety last month.

The video was leaked to the Austin American-Statesman days before victims’ families were set to watch the video for the first time.

The 77-minute video shows officers rushing into the school minutes after the gunman fired shots as he entered a classroom. The officers then run from the door after additional shots were fired.

It would be more than an hour, as officers from multiple agencies arrived, before officers would breach the classroom door and kill the shooter.

The video also shows the moments one of the officers learned his wife, teacher Eve Mireles, was shot and dying, according to Texas State Rep. Joe Moody.

“That’s my wife’s classroom,” an officer can be heard saying on the leaked video.

Texas DPS Director Steven McCraw described that moment and their findings during testimony in front of lawmakers in June.

“He tried to move forward into the hallway. He was detained, and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene,” McCraw said.

McCraw also faced questions about why officers, including his own, did not advance and breach the classroom sooner.

“It is our policy to follow the on-scene commander. It is dangerous if you do not,” McCraw said during a June Senate hearing.

ALERRT released a report in early July criticizing the law enforcement response to the May 24 shooting. The report stated “when the officers were fired at, momentum was lost. The officers fell back, and it took more than an hour to regain momentum and gain access to critically-injured people.

The leaked video shows most of the gunshots were fired inside of the classroom before officers entered the elementary school. But, throughout the more than an hour officers were in the building, more gunfire was audible through the surveillance recording. Still, officers did not advance on the classroom door.

Instead, multiple officers stood at the end of the hallway with their rifles focused on the area just outside the classroom door where the shooter was located.

It is unclear if the video the Texas House Investigatory committee plans to release to families, and the public, on Sunday will show more of the response.

A source close to the committee told Nexstar’s KXAN the video set to be released Sunday will be a 77-minute unedited video of the school hallways with no sound.

The leaked video by the Austin American-Statesman Tuesday included cell phone video, body-worn camera video, and surveillance video from outside of the school.

The committee also plans to release its report, which will include parts of the never-before-heard testimony given by the Uvalde Sheriff and Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo during closed-door sessions.