With the initial police response to the Uvalde, Texas, shooting already being criticized, a new claim has emerged that police sent away a civilian trying to intervene in the early moments of the atrocity.
Cody Briseno is an attendant at the funeral home across the street from Robb Elementary School, according to NBC.
On May 24, with no idea of what was to come, he said he became involved in the incident when he ran to help Salvador Ramos after the 18-year-old crashed his truck, according to NBC.
Briseno was outside with a co-worker when the incident began. They went to help the truck’s driver.
Ramos got out of the vehicle with evil in his eyes, Briseno told NBC.
“I see him crawling out from the passenger window,” he said. “I tell them, ‘Hey, man, are you OK? Are you all right?'”
He said Ramos opened fire at them, but they were able to enter Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home after other workers held open the front door for them.
Briseno then saw the gunman heading for the school.
As Ramos grabbed his rifle, Briseno and his co-worker fled. Briseno fell as he ran.
“I get up, and as I’m running, I look back,” Briseno told NBC. “And he was aiming that barrel right at me and my co-worker.”
He said Ramos opened fire at them, but they were able to enter Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home after other workers held open the front door for them.
Briseno then saw the gunman heading for the school.
He said he phoned his wife to bring him his gun and said she arrived around the same time as the police.
Meanwhile, the shooter was already firing into the windows of the school, he said.
After Briseno had his gun, he tried to intervene, but was stopped.
“Hey, what are you doing,” he said an officer asked him as he began to walk toward the school.