‘I’m going in there’: Mother recalls moments she spent inside school during shooting in Texas

A mum who ran into Robb Elementary School as the deadly massacre played out has spoken of the moment she risked her life for her kids.

A mother-of-two has described the moment she sprinted inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde during the May 24 mass shooting to rescue her sons.

Farm worker Angeli Gomez had already attended the school that morning for her children’s graduation ceremonies.

After the graduation ceremonies concluded, Ms Gomez went to work.

Ms Gomez attended the graduation ceremonies of her two children on the morning of May 24. Picture: CBS News

Within ten minutes, Ms Gomez received a call from her panic-stricken mother informing her that there was a shooting at the school so she got in her car and sped at about 100 miles (161 kilometres) per hour back to the primary school.

Right after Ms Gomez parked her car, sheriffs approached her and said that she had to move her car.

When Ms Gomez refused to do so, she was told that they were going to have to arrest her for being “uncooperative”. That was when Ms Gomez proceeded to read them the riot act.

“And he said, well, we’re going to have to arrest you because you’re being very uncooperative,” Ms Gomez told CBS News. “I said, ‘Well, you’re going to have to arrest me because I’m going in there. And I’m telling you right now, I don’t see none of y’all in there. Y’all are standing with snipers and y’all are far away.’”

Ms Gomez was then handcuffed by authorities to stop her from running inside the primary school.

The mother was handcuffed outside of the primary school for being “uncooperative”. Picture: CBS News

But as soon as she was let loose, Ms Gomez’s mother’s instinct kicked in and she jumped the fence and raced into the school to rescue her children.

“I jumped that first gate fence and once I jumped in, I went to my son’s class and I knocked on the door. And I remember the teacher saying, ‘I’m like, hey, they’re already cutting the fence to get me,” Ms Gomez recalled to CBS News. “She’s like, ‘you think we have time to get out.’ I said ‘yall have time, I’m going to run for my other son.’”

After finding out that her first child was fine, Ms Gomez then tried to find her other child, only to encounter more officers who tried to stop her from doing so.

“And as I see that they’re opening my son’s door, I go run for my son and I get him,” Ms Gomez explained.

Footage of Ms Gomez holding her two sons as they ran from the school was caught on camera.

The mom that ran in and saved her kids after being handcuffed in Uvalde finally spoke out. pic.twitter.com/wHNouRkCY7

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Ms Gomez said that she still thinks about all those who lost their lives that day.

“The gunshots were still active. They were not in there. There was no one in there. If anything, when I pulled out, my car was closer to the school than that,” Ms Gomez recalled. “They could have saved many more lives. They could have gone into that classroom and maybe two or three would have been gone. But they could have saved, the whole, more, the whole class. They could have done something, gone through the window, sniped him through the window, I mean something, but nothing was being done.”

Ms Gomez says that officers could have “saved more lives”. Picture: CBS News

According to Ms Gomez, authorities were being very hostile to concerned parents waiting outside the school. She said that they were more concerned about keeping parents back from the school than saving everyone inside it.

“I told one of the officers, ‘I don’t need you to protect me, get away from me, I don’t need your protection. If anything I need you to go in there with me to go protect my kids,’” Ms Gomez said.