Officer Husband of Slain Uvalde Teacher Was Detained, Had Gun Taken Away After Trying to Save Wife
Shocking testimony from the Texas DPS director on Tuesday has revealed even more insight into the “abject failure” of response to the Uvalde shooting that occurred on May 24.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Col. Steven McCraw revealed that the husband of slain elementary teacher Eva Mireles tried to save her but was barred from doing so.
Ruben Ruiz is a police officer for the school district and was on the scene after the gunman entered the school and opened fire.
McCraw said Mireles called Ruiz and told him that “she had been shot and was dying.”
“And what happened to him, is he tried to move forward into the hallway,” McCraw said. “He was detained and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene.”
When it came out that police had made a crucial error, waiting to enter the classroom the shooter was holed up in for over an hour.
McCraw, the directer of the Texas Department of Public Safety, would say the obvious, that it was the “wrong decision, period.”
He would add that, “When it comes to an active shooter, you don’t have to wait on tactical gear, plain and simple.”
McCraw also went on record last month to say that Peter Arredondo, the chief of police for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, had stopped at least 19 officers from breaking into the school as the gunman opened fire for at least an hour.
Law enforcement officials have faced increasing questions in the days since the shooting about whether officers on the scene could have acted more quickly to stop the gunman.
Videos circulated on social media show desperate parents begging officers to enter the school, and parents have reported being handcuffed and Tased by law enforcement officers when they implored officers to act or tried to retrieve their children.
