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Robb teacher: Lying on the floor felt like an eternity


Robb Elementary teacher Arnulfo Reyes, who survived two gunshot wounds and the taunting of the gunman, said in a recent interview that he waited two weeks after the shooting to offer his first interview because he wanted others to be able to express themselves.

During that time, he discovered there were different versions of what happened outside the classrooms, mostly about how the police waited for 77 minutes to take on the shooter, but Reyes has his own clear memory of what it felt like to be left alone on the classroom floor, bleeding and praying not to be shot again for what “felt like an eternity.”

And for the first time, in an interview last Thursday, Reyes talked about the taunting, mental torture that 18-year-old shooter Salvador Ramos inflicted.

Lying in a growing puddle of blood, the longtime teacher said that the gunman knelt next to him, “tapped his fingers in the blood and threw it” at Reyes’ face. He said he was in so much pain that it was impossible to respond. “I kept my eyes closed and my breathing was not good because my lungs were filling with blood.”

Craig Garnett

The teacher’s cell phone was sitting on his desk and when it began to ring, the gunman picked it up and placed it on Reyes’ back. “He picked it up and dropped it about four times.”

Reyes expected the gunman to finish him off but Ramos finally moved over to another table and sat down. It was at that time that the police called to him from the hallway, saying they wanted to talk.

“He didn’t say anything, just gave a nervous, little cough, Uhumm.”

Finally a girl called out from the adjoining classroom where Irma Garcia had been killed and her co-teacher Eva Mireles shot in the chest. “‘Officer, we’re still in here,”’ Reyes said he heard. At that point Ramos got up and went to the classroom. Reyes heard more gunshots.

The teacher elaborated on his malfunctioning door, saying that he had “reported it to administration a thousand times.” It was not a faulty strike plate as reported by the Texas Department of Public Safety but rather the latch tongue was not releasing.

“When the police officers made the rounds, my door never worked … If you turned the knob from the outside, it might feel locked but you could just pull the door open.”

Reyes said he had also expressed concerns to administration about the shooting drills they practiced, because the children were told to hide under a long table next to the windows.

“I mentioned that if one day a shooter comes in here and they are a product of Uvalde, they are going to know were we are at. Simple as that. Simple as that.”

As it turned out, the shooter was not only a product of the school district but had attended fourth grade in that same classroom but with a different teacher. 

The things Reyes saw and heard on May 24 can never be erased, but he is strong, getting therapy – physical and mental – and prepared to remember the best things about the 11 students who died in his classroom. They were special from the very beginning. And the two women he called the best co-teachers he had ever seen. “I loved listening to them teach.”

Finally, I asked the gentle teacher what he thought about police officers saying from the hallway they weren’t sure if children were in the classrooms.

A faint smile played across his lips. “It’s a school.”