A 9-year-old student who survived a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school recalled what the gunman told them.
“He shot the next person’s door. We have a door in the middle. He opened it. He came in and he crouched a little bit and he said, ‘It’s time to die,’” the student told KENS 5 television, referring to 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, the suspected gunman.
“When he shot, it was very loud and it hurt my ear.”
The student told the station that when he first heard shooting coming from outside the classroom, he turned to his friend and said they should “hide under something so he won’t find us.”
“I was hiding hard. And I was telling my friend to not talk because he is going to hear us,” the unidentified student told KENS 5.
The boy and several other students then took cover underneath a table with a tablecloth.
“When the cops came, the cop said: ‘Yell if you need help!’ And one of the persons in my class said ‘Help,’” the student said. “The guy overheard and ... shot her.”
An officer then went “into that classroom,” he said, adding that the suspect “shot at the cop” before “the cops started shooting.”
Teachers Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles “were in front of my classmates to help ... to save them,” the student said. Mireles and Garcia were later confirmed dead.
Ramos wounded two responding officers inside a hallway before barricading himself inside the classroom, officials also said. The attack drew a massive law enforcement response, including hundreds of officers, who encircled the building and broke windows in an effort to evacuate children and staff.
There were few warning signs: Ramos, a high school dropout, had no criminal record or history of mental illness. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on May 25 that Ramos had written an online message to someone minutes before the attack, saying he was about to shoot up a school.
Authorities said Ramos shot his grandmother in the face at the home they shared, before fleeing and crashing his car outside Robb Elementary School sometime around 11:30 a.m. local time on May 24. His grandmother, who is hospitalized in critical condition, managed to call the police.
Once outside the school, Ramos, armed with a rifle, evaded a school police officer, dropping a bag full of ammunition as he did so. Officials have offered conflicting accounts as to whether Ramos and the officer exchanged gunfire before Ramos entered the school.
