Police – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Price

An exterior door at Robb Elementary College did not lock when it was closed by a teacher shortly earlier than a gunman used it to get inside and kill 19 college students and two lecturers, leaving investigators looking to find out why, state police stated Tuesday.

State police initially said a instructor had propped the door open shortly before the shooter entered the school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.

They've now decided that the trainer, who has not been identified, propped the door open with a rock, however then eliminated the rock and closed the door when she realized there was a shooter on campus, stated Travis Considine, chief communications officer for the Texas Division of Public Safety. However, Considine stated, the door didn't lock.

“We did confirm she closed the door. The door didn't lock. We all know that much and now investigators are trying into why it did not lock,” Considine said.

Investigators confirmed the element through extra video footage reviewed since last Friday’s information convention when authorities first mentioned that the door had been left propped open. Authorities did not state at that time what had been used to prop open the door.

Considine said the instructor initially propped the door open but ran again inside to get her cellphone and call 911 when the gunman crashed his truck on campus.

“She got here back out while on her telephone, she heard somebody yell, ‘He has a gun!’, she saw him leap the fence and that he had a gun, so she ran back inside,” removing the rock when she did, Considine said.

San Antonio attorney Don Flanary instructed the San Antonio Express-Information that the Robb Elementary College worker, whom he’s not naming, closed the door shut after realizing that a gunman was on the loose. She had initially propped it open to hold meals from a car to a classroom, the attorney said.

“She kicked the rock away when she went back in. She remembers pulling the door closed whereas telling 911 that he was shooting,” Flanary told the newspaper.

Funerals are planned for the subsequent two-and-a-half weeks for the 19 children and two teachers who had been killed in that classroom on May 24.

“She thought the door would lock because that door is at all times purported to be locked,” Flanary stated.

Flanary did not instantly return phone messages left at his workplace from The Associated Press.

Investigators are also nonetheless making an attempt to interview Uvalde Consolidated Unbiased Faculty District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who state police have stated was the commander of the college taking pictures scene whereas it occurred.

Steven McCraw, the top of the Texas Division of Public Security, has said Arredondo treated the active scene as a hostage scenario and as if youngsters were no longer in danger, whereas 19 cops waited in the faculty hallway exterior the classroom the place the shooter was.

McCraw known as that the “incorrect choice,” saying the focus of the investigation has shifted to Arredondo and the police response.

Other officers in the Uvalde city and faculties police departments proceed to sit down for interviews and provide statements, but Arredondo has not responded to DPS requests for two days, Considine said.