4th grade survivor of Texas college taking pictures describes gunman’s words earlier than opening fire

Survivors of the Texas elementary school shooting are recounting the gunman's eerie remaining phrases of "Good evening" and "You're all gonna die" before opening fire, and how some performed dead to be spared in the spray of bullets.

Fourth grade pupil Miah Cerrillo, 11, told CNN her class was watching “Lilo and Sew” when the shooter appeared Tuesday at Robb Elementary in Uvalde.

She mentioned the gunman checked out one among her lecturers in the eye and stated, “Good night” earlier than capturing her.

Miah advised her story through a CNN producer. She didn't need to communicate on digicam and declined to speak to any men following her expertise with the school shooting and solely felt comfortable talking to ladies, the broadcaster mentioned. NBC Information couldn't instantly confirm the account.

Miah herself was hit by fragments in the hail of bullets, CNN reported.

After firing photographs in her classroom, the shooter went into the adjoining classroom and opened fire, Miah stated. She stated she heard “sad music” playing, believing the gunman put it on. 

When asked what the music was, she said it sounded like, “I would like people to die music.”

Miah said that when the gunman went into the other room she smeared a buddy’s blood on herself to look dead. She additionally stated she and a pal grabbed their trainer’s cellphone and known as 911, telling a dispatcher, “Please send assist because we’re in bother.” 

In the Tuesday horror, 19 kids and two lecturers were killed, and one other 17 had been wounded.

A Robb Elementary teacher, who spoke on the situation of anonymity, advised NBC Information that a Raptor alert, a program designed to alert employees of a lockdown, went off after shots had been fired and kids began to cover below their desks in the class. 

Samuel Salinas, 10, was a scholar in instructor Irma Garcia’s class on Tuesday when the varsity shooting unfolded.

“It was a normal day till my trainer mentioned we’re on severe lockdown” and “then there was shooting in the home windows,” he said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Friday.

He mentioned that the gunman barged into the classroom, introduced, “You’re all gonna die,” and then started to shoot. 

“He shot the trainer and then he shot the youngsters,” Samuel mentioned. 

He defined that he survived by playing dead after he got hit within the leg with shrapnel that hit a chair between him and the shooter.

“I feel he was aiming at me,” Samuel stated. “I performed lifeless so he wouldn’t shoot me.”

When police lastly entered the room and shot the gunman, the children were evacuated. In the rushed exit, Samuel noticed the bodies of his teacher and different pupils.

“There was blood on the ground,” he mentioned. “And there were youngsters ... full of blood.” 

The investigation into the shooting is ongoing, and many questions remain as to why it took police so lengthy to take out the gunman.

The shooter, Salvador Ramos, 18, was killed on the scene.

In a information conference Thursday, Texas officers walked again beforehand released info, saying the gunman wasn’t confronted by a college police officer and entered the school constructing unobstructed.

Police now say it took over an hour from the primary 911 call to cease the massacre.

Officers shared a new timeline revealing that at 11:28 a.m. Tuesday the gunman crashed a automobile near the school and shot at two individuals exterior a funeral dwelling throughout the road, then climbed over a fence to Robb Elementary.

Officers stated the first 911 call got here in at 11:30 a.m., the gunman entered the college 10 minutes later and four minutes later police had been on the scene. The first officers on the scene referred to as for backup, but tactical teams didn’t arrive till about an hour later, Victor Escalon, the South Texas regional director for the state Department of Public Security, mentioned Thursday.

Texas investigators advised NBC Information victims of the taking pictures were found in four classrooms.

Robb Elementary serves second by means of fourth grade students in the small city of Uvalde, which is about 75 miles from the Mexico borders and residential to a large Latino community.

Dad and mom and family members who had been gathered exterior Robb Elementary through the shooting begged and shouted at police to enter and shield their children.

Angeli Rose Gomez advised The Wall Street Journal she was handcuffed by U.S. marshals exterior the varsity for repeatedly demanding police enter the college. 

“The police have been doing nothing,” she said to the paper. “They were just standing outdoors the fence. They weren’t entering into there or working anyplace.” 

She mentioned at first she waited patiently then when she grew to become extra fervent together with her pleas, U.S. marshals allegedly arrested her for intervening in an energetic investigation. 

Marshals told NBC News in an announcement that deputy marshals “by no means arrested or placed anybody in handcuffs whereas securing the crime scene perimeter.”

“Our deputy marshals maintained order and peace in the midst of the grief-stricken group that was gathering across the faculty."

Marlene Lenthang is a breaking information reporter for NBC Information Digital.

Pete Williams and Jonathan Dienst contributed.