Footage shows how Uvalde cop Ruben Ruiz was STOPPED from saving his dying wife by fellow officers
UVALDE, TEXAS: Newly released body cam footage by Uvalde Police Department has uncovered another sorry chapter of what went down after the police arrived at the scene of the shooting. The clip shows Uvalde school police officer Ruben Ruiz, 43, moving through a crowd of uniformed officers, all armed to the teeth, on his way to save his wife, Eva Mireles, a special education teacher killed in the Uvalde school mass shooting. "Hey, hey, hey, Ruben, Ruben, Ruben, Ruben," someone offscreen says as they see him with his gun, ready to defend his wife.
Mireles, one of the victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting, was a fourth-grade teacher and had been working in the school for over 17 years. Mireles and Ruiz had been married for more than a decade. From the released footage Ruiz could be seen being held back from trying to save his dying wife by other cops. ''She says she's shot, Johnny,'' Ruiz says to an officer, who puts his arm around the concerned husband's neck and shoulder and pulls him back away from the direction of the classroom. Then, off-camera, fellow officers took his gun away from him.
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Watch from 24:30 mark onwards.
Ruiz had previously been reprimanded after surveillance footage from inside the school during the incident showed him checking his phone. In the video Ruiz could be seen checking his phone down the hallway before gunfire is heard, making other officers retreat. Looking frightened, Ruiz checked his phone again before putting it back in his pocket. His 'Punisher' wallpaper is visible on his phone. However, later it was revealed that Mireles had called Ruiz from inside the classroom, where she was mortally wounded.
In the newly released video, Ruiz is standing down the hall from the classroom where the shooter was barricaded with his wife, checking his phone at 11:36 am. “She’s in the classroom and he’s outside. It’s terrifying,” the Uvalde County judge, Bill Mitchell told The New York Times. "I don’t know what was said, [but] he was talking to his wife," he told the paper.
According to the footage, it could be noted that it was 11:48 am when Ruiz tried to take action against the gunman. Texas Department of Public Safety director Steve McCraw slammed police's response to the May 24 massacre as ''an abject failure'' during the State Senate hearing held on Tuesday, July 19, DailyMail reported. "We got an officer whose wife called him and said she'd been shot and she's dying. He tried to move forward into the hallway. He was detained, and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene," McCraw said.
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The Texas House of Representatives recently concluded that several of the injured could have survived if they had received medical treatment sooner. Ruiz, a Uvalde Consolidated School District Police officer, had recently also participated in active shooter drills inside the school to prepare for such an event. Ruiz, who was born in Uvalde, became an officer in 2006 and worked as a patrolman, training officer, youth advisor detective, and worked in the Organized Crime Unit. He trained in active shooter drills several times and attended Advanced SWAT school. He joined the school district police in 2018.
Mireles, who was a special education teacher at Robb Elementary School for 17 years, had an adult daughter. She attributed her longevity to her "supportive, fun, and loving family," which included her four pets. In the great outdoors, she enjoyed hiking, biking, and running.