The man who claimed to be Tom Gomez told the Springfield Central Dispatch of September 15th, 2012: “Shearing a dozen students in a classroom”

On September 15th, a man who claimed to be Tom Gomez called the Sangamon County Central Dispatch in Illinois and reported that two attackers had shot a dozen students at Springfield High School. According to audio of the call obtained by WIRED, the man was specific. The caller, breathing heavily, told dispatchers that he was locked inside a math classroom with other students and that the two men, both dressed in blue pants and green jackets, were killing students in the adjacent classroom: room 219.

Within five minutes, Springfield police arrived at the high school’s second floor where they were told a mass murder had occurred. The problem is that, according to police records, Springfield High doesn’t have a room 219. There was no shooting at all.

“The underlying reason that it is effective as a disruption or as an emotional, psychological attack is because we know it could be real,” said Amanda Klinger, director of operations for the Educator School Safety Network, a national nonprofit organization that does school safety for primarily K-12 educators. “We are being weaponized against us in regards to our fear of school shootings and school violence.”

The Multiple Shootings of Robb Elementary School, a Charged Terrorist, and the Report of an Involuntary Shooting

Evans said that the calls in his state were all made directly to schools or to non-emergency dispatch lines, rather than to 911. He said they appeared to be coming from Internet-based phone numbers, which either originated in or were routed through foreign countries through a VPN connection.

The audio obtained from Ohio and Minnesota shows a person reporting an active shooting, breathing heavily and following the same narrative as before. He identifies as a student at the school and sounds like an adult male. He also speaks with a heavy accent. NPR also requested call records from locations in other states, but many were denied on the basis that the incidents are under investigation.

In September, at least sixteen Louisiana schools were targeted. The explanation is clear, according to Lieutenant Lane Windham. I don’t think it’s a prank. It’s terrorism,” he says. “When someone’s trying to terrorize the teachers, parents, all the students, and the community, what else can you call it?”

The parents of the survivors of the Robb Elementary School massacre have filed a federal lawsuit against the gun manufacturer, the school district and the city for a number of allegations, including negligent and recklessness.

The district had previously fired the chief of the department, Pete Arredondo, who state officials have said was the incident commander during the shooting and bore responsibility for delaying a confrontation with the gunman for over an hour after the shooting began. The murderer killed 19 kids and two teachers.

A lawsuit against Daniel Defense and Firequest International in the Uvalde, Texas, shooting-related incident that killed two teachers and three police officers

The complaint states that Daniel Defense decided not to do any studies to evaluate the effects of their marketing strategies on the health and well-being of Americans and instead chose to ignore the costs to families and communities in Texas.

The complaint notes that days before the shooting, a Georgia-based company had posted an image of a toddler holding an assault-style weapon with the caption: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

The claim also says Firequest International, Inc., which manufactures accessory trigger systems, similar to illegal bump stocks, sells its products to untrained civilians, young adults and minors in Uvalde. These types of devices let semi-automatic rifles fire more rapidly.

“The Uvalde school shooter’s background check was clean, and Oasis Outback sold him the guns and ammunition knowing he was suspicious and likely dangerous,” according to the legal document. “The store owner and his staff did not act on their suspicions and block the purchases or notify law enforcement.”

The man legally bought two rifles at a local federal firearms licensee. On May 18, he purchased more than 500 rounds of rounds of ammunition, officials said.

So far, the only person known to have lost their job over the response to the shooting has been school police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, who was fired by the school board in August. Arredondo became the figurehead of the failed response, though he has said he did not consider himself the incident commander and has called to be reinstated.

Memos written just two days after the May 24 massacre and reviewed by CNN detail some of the DPS involvement in the hesitant but chaotic law enforcement response to the shooting in Uvalde, Texas. No action was taken against the gunman or to help those trapped with him for 77 minutes apart from an initial approach that was aborted when he started firing. Nineteen people were killed in the massacre, including two teachers.

The acting police chief on the day of the massacre is faulted by the suit as well as two other companies because of defects in their products. The claim says that the radio communications devices were dangerous because they didn’t contain adequate warnings or instructions.

Lawyers also say Schneider Electric, the manufacturer of the door locking mechanisms used at the school, “failed to lock as designed after being shut.”

“What happened in Uvalde was an unspeakable tragedy that we condemn in the strongest terms,” Schneider Electric spokesperson Venancio Figueroa III told CNN. “We are reviewing this recent filing but cannot comment further on pending litigation.”

Daniel Defense, Oasis Outback, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, FireQuest International, Motorola Solutions, Inc., Pargas and Arredondo have all not responded to CNN request for comment.

When the Robb Elementary School Shooting Happens: A State Trooper’s Response to the Shooting and the Family of Two Shooting Victims

A previous version of the story also included the name of another person. That person is not a party in the complaint and the name has been removed.

A former Texas Department of Public Safety trooper is under investigation for her response to the massacre after being hired as a teacher by a school district.

A state trooper named Crimson Elizondo arrived at Robb Elementary within two minutes of the shootings taking place.

She no longer works for the agency. During the summer, she was hired as a police officer for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, where her role is to protect some of the very same children who survived the Robb Elementary shooting.

Elizondo was one of the first of the 91 DPS officers to arrive, one of the 376 total law enforcement personnel who went to the school where the shooter was left for 77 minutes – with dead, dying and traumatized victims – before he was stopped. The response to the attack in which 19 children and two teachers were killed has been denounced as an “abject failure” with enough blame to be spread widely.

“Regarding the remaining UCISD Police Department employees, we continue to make personnel decisions based on verifiable information. An independent investigation is underway to evaluate the actions of current officers. The statement stated that they were awaiting results of a management and organizational review of the Police Department that would aid them in taking informed actions to further ensure the safety and security of our schools.

Uvalde CISD has said it wanted to recruit 10 more officers after the May 24 attack. The names and photos of Elizondo and other police officers, a lieutenant and security guard are on the website, but it did not publicly announce the hiring of her.

She doesn’t have to worry about the restriction in her new position. The new home for the younger students who survived the Robb bloodshed is where children and parents walked past her as they headed into the school year.

According to family members, some of the parents who lost children in the massacre recognized her from the body camera footage.

The statement from family representatives calls for all department officers to be suspended pending a third-party investigation, and its results “must be released” to the public as well as families of the victims.

“Our children have been taken from us. We will not stop fighting until we have answers and we ensure the safety of the children in our community is the top priority,” the statement said.

“I’m absolutely appalled,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper and says the school board met with him and offered to pull such officers to off-campus roles. He says he will continue to hold a vigil outside the school board offices until all officers are suspended.

The memos reviewed by CNN and the audio offer evidence that contradicts the official DPS narrative that its officers were never in control or issuing substantive orders. DPS director McCraw has repeatedly criticized then-school district police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo as leading the “abject failure” of a response. Arredondo did not see himself as the incident commander.

Sources familiar with the inquiry told CNN that Elizondo was not properly equipped and said to investigators that she was not comfortable going inside the school without her gear.

She does not approach the school but stays with officers from other agencies outside the fence until a call comes over the radio, “Shots fired inside the building!”

The Daily Life of a Student During the Slain-Death-Slaved Uvalde Elementary School: Correlating the Footsteps of the Shooting

The recordings for more than one hour of confusion and delay make up the catalog of errors that have become a part of the Uvalde tragedy.

She went to gathering supplies for a colleague after she volunteered to help in the event of a final breach. She was away from the school when the gunman was shot and killed.

The recordings of the body camera shows the hallway where so many stood turned into a scene of carnage as students were evacuated and assessed their injuries.

If students were able to go, Elizondo urged them not to see their injuries or the blood on the floor. She comforted one boy as an officer checked his wounds, telling him time and again that she was there with him, that he would be OK and that his parents would soon be told.

Two weeks later official notes of a meeting showed McCraw telling captains, “No one is losing their jobs.” He told CNN that he had been misquoted in the minutes and had vowed that no one would get a pass.

He said he would release any information when he could but the district attorney wants him to wait until criminal investigations are finished so it won’t take long.

CNN and a group of other news organizations are threatening to sue the Department of Public Safety for the records related to the investigation that have not been made public.

An Investigation in the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) During the October 2018 Shooting of Robb Elementary School: Elizondo, a Superintendent, and the Charged Officer

Elizondo earned a base salary of $59,715 at DPS, according to a database compiled by The Texas Tribune, reflecting a 12% raise a year ago. She joined the department in 2018.

That posting lists mental and physical demands of the position, including an “Ability to effectively deal with personal danger which may include sudden exposure to armed persons … under intense threatening conditions.”

She told another officer as she returned to Robb Elementary from the hospital that nothing could prepare her for what they brought out. It was horrible.”

A lieutenant and another school official were put on leave as a result of the school district’s investigation.

On Friday, the school district said in a statement that it had placed the officer who took over for Mr. Arredondo, Lt. Miguel Hernandez, and another district employee, Ken Mueller, on administrative leave. The director of student services decided to retire, the statement said.

As the reports grew, she began to suspect that they may have come from overseas and possibly from Africa.

“The scale and the timeline of the events is highly, highly unusual,” she said. The calls are straight forward. They are coordinated. They are grouped state-by-state and district-by-district, and they’re also sustained. Someone is working to keep these going.

Conley said the possibility that the calls came from a foreign individual or entity may be bolstered by details that the caller provided that are atypical of school shootings in the U.S. For example, the particular model of gun the caller referenced as the weapon was often different from what is commonly used in school shootings.

The agency said it was working with law enforcement, wherever they were in the country. There are some reports which state that the calls may be coming from Africa or Ethiopia. The FBI would not comment on this detail.

Whose attention are they focused on now? she said. “Is it the public? Law enforcement? What is the media? Something else? And why they’re after it?”

Keeping Schools Safe: The Latest Online Campaigns Concerning Phishing, Abuse and Innocence in Schools and their Uses for Terrorism

“It was popularized by extremely online communities with proclivities toward violence and perceived ideological enemies,” said Conley. Live- gaming communities and extremists are some of the groups that have been included. Schools seem to have been the recent target of institutions.

Mo Canady, executive director for the non-profit organization National Association of School Resource Officers, said that they’ve dealt with false bomb threats for decades. “If we get a call of someone shooting people and killing people, that’s not a big deal.” That requires really an all-out response.”

There is concern that if the spike in swatting continues, that will cause trauma. Klinger said even hoaxes can create fearful situations that exact a psychological and emotional toll upon students, educators and parents. She said she would like to see more federal guidance on how to keep school communities safe, but still nurturing.

NPR found at least six states where bomb threats started and then continued through April. Minnesota, North Carolina, Maine, Louisiana and Hawaii each saw multiple hoax calls on a single day.

In Louisiana, where at least 5 schools received false calls about bomb threats on April 21, investigators linked the caller’s Internet Protocol address to Ethiopia, according to a local report. More recently, a report from Minnesota cited Alexandria Police Chief Scott Kent saying that he believed the calls made in September to schools in his state were linked to an IP address in Ethiopia. Kent did not respond to requests for interviews.

Canady was wondering if someone was testing our systems to see how we respond to those types of events.

He said that it can cost lives if we don’t hesitate. “So unfortunately, we have to continue to proceed in an emergency manner… until we know for a fact that it’s not a real incident.”

Without an ideological aim behind these calls, they might not qualify as terrorism under the FBI’s definition. But many note that its effect may be the same.

“There’s a significant amount of intentionality based on the information that’s been reported,” said Evans. “They were doing this with a purpose to cause fear in our communities.”

The Uvalde School Board, a Los Angeles Times investigation of a gunman’s murder, and his resignation after the May 10 school shooting

The district said recent developments have uncovered additional concerns with the operations of the department and currently employed officers will move to other roles. A report on the investigation is expected later this month.

Brett Cross, whose 10-year-old son Uziyah Garcia died in the shooting, had been protesting outside the Uvalde school administration building, demanding transparency and accountability — the first step of which he tweeted as being the suspension of involved officers. The demonstrators left after the press release was issued.

The Uvalde school board unanimously accepted Hal’s retirement on Wednesday, five months after he was the one who ordered the elementary school in the Texas district to be locked down.

Harrell had announced last week he’d step aside amid continued backlash over the way officials and law enforcement responded to the massacre at Robb Elementary School in May, when an 18-year-old gunman opened fire and slaughtered 19 children and two teachers.

I appreciate your support and well wishes. The October 10 post on social media said that his decision to retire had not been made lightly. “My wife and I love you all and this community that we both grew up in, and therefore the decision was a difficult one for us.”

After learning that dozens of cops stood in the hallway while the madman stayed in two classrooms, they became angry.

The sister of a teacher killed in a school shooting wants the entire board to resign and that the principal and vice principal be removed from their positions.

The Twitter Story of May 24, 2012: An Undercover Investigative Investigation into the Delay in Law Enforcement Response to a Shooter at Robb Elementary

In a social media post, Harrell wrote, “My heart was broken on May 24th and I will always pray for each precious life that was tragically taken as well as their families.”

The delay in law enforcement’s response during the shooting, which was heavily criticized, was contrary to a widely taught protocol for active shooter situations.

Several officers arrived on the scene moments after the gunfire at Robb Elementary. After taking fire from the gunman, they retreated to a hallway while the gunman remained inside the classrooms for a total of 77 minutes before a tactical unit forced their way in and killed the shooter, according to a timeline from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

In the weeks following what became the deadliest school shooting in the US since 2012, the apparent stonewalling by some officials regarding law enforcement response that day compounded grief that permeated among victims’ families and the Uvalde community.

One of the first people to arrive on the scene was a fellow officer, and he asked if she had children at the school.

A captain of the Texas state police tried to delay the law enforcement team from entering the classrooms at the elementary school, but is now under investigation after a person at the scene said he ordered his officers to stay out of the school.

CNN has learned from individuals who are not authorized to speak to the media that several current and former officers of the Texas Department of Public Safety have been referred for further investigation after being questioned multiple times in the immediate aftermath of the event.

A lieutenant of the Department of Public Safety wrote about how he had driven from some 40 miles away to get to the scene after being told that all Department of Public Safety personnel need to be on a perimeter.

The sergeant wrote that they decided to enter the building where the shooter was located because it was clearly against established training.

After the teen shot and killed a BORTAC team member, he set up a command post to clear the crime scene. He told investigators how he used FaceTime to show his superiors the state of the school after the carnage, the sources familiar with the interviews said.

The names of the DPS officers under investigation have not been publicly released. CNN received confirmation from various sources that Betancourt was involved. The CNN report about how Elizondo spoke on the day of the massacre resulted in her being fired from her job at the Uvalde school district.

The first direct accounts from the officers are being scrutinized by the inspector general, and the interviews from the immediate days after the event offer some of their first information.

The St. Louis Elementary School Shooting Assayed by a 19-Year-Old Gunman and a Charged, Unarmed Sergeant

Betancourt told agents he had no body camera or dash cam recording him, according to the sources. The sources said that he spoke to the Uvalde sheriff on the phone as he drove, and that he heard a gunfight happening at the school.

Betancourt told investigators he arrived at about 12:45 p.m. He assumed Nolasco was the on- scene commander while he was outside the school.

Sources told CNN that he denied talking to anyone about why entry was not being made to the classrooms and only talked about negotiations with the shooter.

He told investigators he issued the order to “stand by” based on information from Nolasco and thought a better team would still be going to the school.

At least two officers said it was Betancourt who alerted them to the ongoing attack at Robb Elementary, the sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.

A sergeant said he had received a text about an “active shooter” incident from Betancourt at about 11:37 a.m., raising questions about Betancourt’s claim that he only became involved later.

McCraw and other DPS leaders have refused to discuss the internal investigations or release information until the investigations are complete at the request of local District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee. She said she will charge any law enforcement officers who committed a crime at Robb Elementary.

When a 19-year-old gunman opened fire at a St. Louis school Monday, killing two and injuring several others, he was armed with a long gun and nearly a dozen high-capacity magazines – enough ammunition for a “much worse” situation, police said.

The St. Louis School Shooting: a horrific student killed at school, and a Michigan prosecutor who uncovered the killings on July 17, 2015

Authorities credited locked doors and a quick police response – including by off-duty officers – for preventing more killings at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School.

“This could have been much worse,” police Commissioner Michael Sack said. The individual had many high-capacity magazines on him. That’s a whole lot of victims there.”

Alexandria’s father told CNN that Alexandria was looking forward to her Sweet 16. Kuczka was looking forward to retiring in a few years, her daughter told CNN.

The gunman died at a hospital after a gun battle with officers, Sack said. He was identified as a recent graduate of the school.

As the shooting unfolded in St. Louis, a Michigan prosecutor who just heard the guilty plea of a teen who killed four students last fall said she was no longer shocked to hear of another school shooting. “The fact that there is another school shooting does not surprise me – which is horrific,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said.

We need to inform the public of how we can prevent gun violence. It is preventable, and we should never ever allow that to be something we just should have to live with.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/us/st-louis-school-shooting-tuesday/index.html

Alexandria Bell, 28, and Jean Kuczka, a grateful student at Central VPA High School, Houston, Tallahassee, Ohio

Alexandria had an outgoing personality, loved to dance and was a member of her high school’s junior varsity dance team, her father Andre Bell told KSDK.

The two were going to celebrate Halloween this weekend, according to her friend. “She was always funny and always kept the smile on her face and kept everybody laughing,” Robinson said, fighting back tears.

Some alumni remember Jean Kuczka’s impact on her students. She was kindhearted. She was sweet. She always made you laugh even when you wasn’t trying to laugh,” Allen-Brown said.

In her biography, Kuczka stated she had been at Central VPA High School since 2008. She claimed that every child deserves a chance to learn.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/us/st-louis-school-shooting-tuesday/index.html

On the first day of the shooting at a high school: When officers arrived at the school, students and staff were treated like ‘drill’

Some of the teens had gunshot or graze wounds. One had a fractured ankle. The police commissioner said that they were in a good place.

“When he entered, it was out … there was no mystery about what was going to happen,” the commissioner said. “He had it out and entered in an aggressive, violent manner.”

Adrianne said that students thought it was a drill until they heard the sirens and realized their teachers were scared.

“The teacher, she crawled over and she was asking for help to move the lockers to the door so they can’t get in,” Bolden said. “And we started hearing glass breaking from the outside and gunshots outside the door.”

David Williams told CNN that everyone went into ‘drill mode’ and went to the corners so they wouldn’t be seen.

When asked about the time between when the officers got to the school and when they made contact with the shooter, Sack said that it was not very long.

Students and staff were escorted out of the building after officers fanned out and searched for people hiding in different places.

A SWAT team that was together for a training exercise was also able to quickly load up and get to the school to perform a secondary sweep of the building, Sack said.

On the 911 Caller Khloie Torres: What Happened when Two Officers and One Associated Personnel Collided

That caller was student Khloie Torres. She was 10 years old at the time. It would be 40 minutes from the time of her first call until law enforcement forced their way into her classroom.

According to reports, the newly surfaced recordings include more than 20 calls, including those between officers and dispatchers, and reveal a chaotic response without clear communication. At least one time, a dispatch gave incorrect information to personnel.

A medic says that they are taking too long. That was minutes before Khloie Torres started her third 911 call. She was able to survive the shooting.

The officers didn’t know what was happening behind the locked doors because they did not hear screams or cries, despite hearing gunshots ringing out.

Officers still did not breach the classroom after a responding officer’s wife, a fourth-grade teacher at the school, was shot, and called her husband saying she was “dying.”

He acknowledged there were victims at 12:20 p.m., saying on footage obtained through another officer’s body cam that “We have victims in there. I don’t want to have any more. You know what I’m saying?”