Uvalde Mother Says She Was Handcuffed, Saw Parents Tased and Pepper-Sprayed at Scene of School Shooting

A mother of two students at the Uvalde, Texas Robb Elementary School where more than 20 were shot and killed is claiming that federal agents put her in handcuffs at the scene and other officers tased and pepper-sprayed parents they felt were interfering with the investigation.

There have been major questions as to the exact timeline of events surrounding the shooting and the eventual takedown of the shooter, who was killed at the scene. Texas officials are still investigating the circumstances of the situation, but have suggested it took forty minutes to an hour for tactical officers to breach the school and confront the gunman, after other officers were fired upon, took cover, and began evacuating the rest of the school.

“They were doing nothing,” Angeli Rose Gomez, who has children in the third and fourth grade at the school, told the Wall Street Journal. Gomez said she was urging police to enter the building as they waited outside — video showed other parents were urging this too — and eventually she began to make her requests more frequent. Gomez said she was handcuffed by federal marshals at the scene for interfering with the active investigation, but local police later agreed to let her go.

Gomez claimed when she was released from her cuffs, she ran into the school and grabbed her two children. She said other parents attempting the same were tackled to the ground. One was even pepper-sprayed, according to Gomez.

After students were taken to buses as part of the evacuation, Gomez also claims she also saw a father try to retrieve his child, and he was tasered by officers.

“They didn’t do that to the shooter, but they did that to us,” she said. “That’s how it felt.”

With law enforcement receiving scrutiny over the response to the shooting, many have already expressed outrage at the alleged details from Gomez, including many journalists who have been covering the situation and the frequent new details emerging from Uvalde.

—