Slain Uvalde teacher's sister speaks out on newly released video: 'We don't want to relive this tragedy'
Sister of Robb elementary school teacher Eva Mireles, Maggie Mireles, speaks out on disturbing new video of the Uvalde, Texas mass shooting on 'The Story.'
The sister of a teacher killed in the tragic Uvalde, Texas school shooting expressed outrage on "The Story" Wednesday over the leaked surveillance footage showing officers in the hallway at the time of the massacre, telling Fox News that her family is being forced to "relive this tragedy over and over" amid calls for transparency.
Fourth-grade teacher Eva Mireles, 44, was among the two teachers and 19 elementary school kids who were killed during the shooting at Robb Elementary School when suspected gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, entered the school property armed with a rifle and opened fire.
After weeks of mounting questions surrounding law enforcement's response at the time of the incident, the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE released leaked portions of video footage showing police and other law enforcement officers in the hallway with guns drawn, several feet away from the classroom where the shooting occurred. Officers eventually make their way toward the classroom but retreat toward the end of the hallway after taking fire.
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Children run to safety after escaping from a window during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School where a gunman killed nineteen children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas, U.S. May 24, 2022. (Pete Luna/Uvalde Leader-News/Handout via REUTERS)
"I, for one, and I know my family members are upset," Maggie Mireles told "The Story" when host Martha MacCallum asked about the newly released footage. "Of course, people want transparency. But at the same time, we don’t want to relive this tragedy over and over, and we don’t need a video to show us what happened that day. I know what happened that day."
"These people were killed, these innocent people including my sister. And it was easily done so by somebody being able to obtain a weapon at 18 years old, a weapon like an AR-15 that he used," she continued. "That will never change anything unless the laws change."
At one point in the footage, an officer can be seen walking over to a hand sanitizer dispenser and disinfecting his hands while the suspect remained inside the barricaded classroom. The classroom door was finally breached at 12:50 p.m., 74 minutes after the first officers entered the school.
A banner hangs at a memorial outside Robb Elementary School, the site of a May mass shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers. (AP/Eric Gay)
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Mireles urged the public to focus their outrage on changing the gun laws and school safety protocols that allowed this to happen, instead of getting distracted by the disturbing video.
"This is not going to get any better," she said. "This can still happen anywhere else, so we’re not safe, whether or not that video was released. Of course, I don’t want to see that. I’m upset that it was released. But at the same time, I’m upset that the laws have not changed…we love our sister. We miss our sister. We want justice. This shouldn’t have happened to anybody and whether the video was released or not it, doesn’t change what happened."
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Officials were planning to release the footage on Sunday. Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said he was "deeply disappointed this video was released before all the families who were impacted that day and the community of Uvalde had the opportunity to view it."
"This video provides horrifying evidence that the law enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary on May 24 was an abject failure," McCraw said Tuesday in a statement. "In law enforcement, when one officer fails, we all fail."