Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways

Bizarre footage has emerged from Russia and is circulating on social media showing what’s claimed to be part of an experiment to integrate a counter-uncrewed aerial system (CUAS) interceptor drone on a MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter. On closer inspection, the quadcopter drone is lashed to the fighter using zip ties and, even if that weren’t the case, the practicality of the solution is extremely questionable — to say the least. But it is certainly not the first example of a Russian weapons manufacturer creating an ultimately laughable PR stunt.

Relevant for combat or just PR? Russia’s Project Archangel is showing the “integration” of their CUAS interceptor drone with a fighter jet “…so that the interceptor can be “piloted” by a jet fighter crew.” But the drone is zip tied to the plane, so… https://t.co/1cDyPcImGE pic.twitter.com/Oi3TIivs35 — Samuel Bendett (@sambendett) August 10, 2025

The video was made by Project Archangel, a Russian volunteer group that has dedicated itself to “the creation of UAVs,” mostly of the first-person view (FPV) type. These kinds of drones have become a signature weapon of the war in Ukraine, widely used by both sides, and with an increasing array of different launch platforms.

The footage shows one of Archangel’s quadcopter interceptor drones mounted under the outer wing of a Russian Aerospace Forces MiG-29SMT (izdeliye 9.19R). The jury-rigged installation involves the drone being attached to a sensor housing the jet’s radar warning receiver system, held secure there by commercial-type zip ties. Clearly, there is no way for the jet to actually launch the drone with this kind of setup, and clearing a drone for air-launch would require extensive trials, regardless.

The Archangel drone is attached to the radar warning sensor under the wing of the MiG-29SMT, using a pair of zip ties. via X

There is nothing to indicate the drone would survive the rigors of high-speed jet flight — especially given that it’s fitted with four vulnerable propellers. In fact, it’s doubtful if the jet would even be able to safely take off with a drone fixed to it in this manner. Then there is the very real possibility that it might interfere with the host aircraft’s self-protection system, which it is attached to.

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Otherwise, the video shows a member of the Archangel team sitting in the cockpit of the Fulcrum. It concludes with a takeoff by a Flanker-series fighter, with no evidence that this aircraft is fitted with an interceptor drone.

The ‘glass’ cockpit of the MiG-29SMT, provided with two MFI-68 displays. via X

The date and location of the video are not disclosed, but it’s worth noting that the Russian Ministry of Defense ordered a batch of just 14 MiG-29SMT (9.19R) fighters in 2014, making use of uncompleted airframes at Mikoyan’s Moscow factory. They were delivered to the training base at Privolzhsky near Astrakhan and are not known to have seen any combat use in Ukraine.

A Russian Ministry of Defense video shows MiG-29 training at Privolzhsky Air Base:

The precise relationship between Project Archangel and the Russian Armed Forces is not entirely clear, but the group is one of several that have been set up since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the aim of rapidly producing large numbers of FPV drones, harnessing commercial expertise and manufacturing capacity.

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Back in late 2023, drone expert Samuel Bendett postulated that Project Archangel was receiving Russian Ministry of Defense funding, as it increasingly embraced the opportunities offered by private initiatives of this type.

In the past, Archangel has claimed that its quadcopter interceptor drone can reach a speed of up to 350 kilometers per hour (217 miles per hour) and fly over a distance of 50 kilometers (31 miles). These claims have not been verified. However, counter-air drones have to fly faster and higher than their standard FPV counterparts used for striking ground targets.

�� The Russians has created Archangel interceptor drones to destroy UAVs and naval drones.

It is claimed that the drone exists in 4 modifications, develops a speed of up to 350 km/h and has a range of 50 km.

Equipped with a warhead from 650 to 2,500 grams. pic.twitter.com/2gV8TTKpIE — MAKS 25 ���� �� (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) August 11, 2025

As for the group’s latest claim, it states that it’s working to “integrate interceptor drones directly onto fighter jets.”

In a statement on its Telegram channel, Archangel says: “After a long search for the ideal location for our guided interceptors (which, incidentally, is still ongoing), we decided to place the interceptor on MiGs.”

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The statement continues: “Of course, the aircraft itself moves a little faster than our drone’s cruising speed, but it can deliver the interceptor directly to Kyiv or Lviv.” This is an entirely unrealistic aspiration, not least considering the extensive Ukrainian air defense threats concentrated on these locations, which Russian fighters do not operate even near. Even approaching the front is a very dangerous game for fighters at this time.

Putting aside the fact that the drone, using the installation illustrated, is entirely immobile on the aircraft, it’s by no means clear how it would be operated if it were able to be released.

“The communication issue has been resolved in a radical way,” Archangel claims. “In order not to rack our brains over the technical part, we simply trained our crew to fly a fighter jet.”

A member of the Archangel team in front of the Fulcrum-mounted drone. via X

The final statement, which suggests that drone operators would be retrained to fly a complex and extremely expensive fighter jet, is frankly implausible. At the same time, it also stretches credibility that the pilot of any single-seat fighter would be able to manually direct a drone to slam into a moving target, especially an aerial one.

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After all, the vast majority of FPV drones that go after moving targets or targets of opportunity are equipped with man-in-the-loop control. This means someone is manually flying (or more like directing) these weapons in real time and selecting their targets, normally using a headset. It also requires a continuous line-of-sight datalink between the drone and its controller. FPV drones that are not controlled in this manner are assigned to hit fixed targets, basically a set of coordinates on the map, which would be irrelevant for the drone-interception mission.

For now, we can say with confidence that there is next to no chance of Russia using fighter jets to send interceptor drones into battle against hostile UAS in the skies over Ukraine any time soon. That said, there’s no doubt that Russia is increasingly looking at the potential for using drones to intercept other hostile drones.

The Vogan-9SP counter-drone interceptor. The drone also has a quadcopter configuration, with not all propellers fitted here. Russian state media

Meanwhile, there are certainly moves to develop air-launched FPVs, as well as loitering munitions, and more advanced ‘air launched effects’ (ALEs), with a degree of blurring between the definitions of these. Ultimately, these will become a more common capability on a range of aircraft types, but this effort from Archangel is clearly highly aspirational at best.

Whether strapping an interceptor drone to an antenna on a MiG-29 might help boost Project Archangel’s profile is questionable. But it does underscore the fact that defenses against drones are a very high-profile issue in Russia.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Records reveal medical response further delayed care for Uvalde shooting victims

Eight young survivors of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, joined ABC News to help tell their stories in the wake of the tragedy.

Eight young survivors of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, joined ABC News to help tell their stories in the wake of the tragedy.

Eight young survivors of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, joined ABC News to help tell their stories in the wake of the tragedy.

Eight young survivors of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, joined ABC News to help tell their stories in the wake of the tragedy.

UVALDE, Texas — Bullets had pierced Eva Mireles’ chest as she tried to shield students from a gunman’s semiautomatic rifle. But the fourth grade teacher at Robb Elementary was still conscious when police carried her out of classroom 112 and through a hallway crowded with dead and dying victims.

The video above is from a related story.

This story includes graphic descriptions of injuries sustained in an elementary school shooting and graphic language. Graphic videos reviewed by reporters are not included.

“You’re fine. You’re fine,” said her husband, Uvalde school district police officer Ruben Ruiz, who had been frantically trying to rescue her since the attack began. Mireles looked at him but could not speak. She’d been losing blood for more than an hour.

To see body camera footage and diagrams outlining the medical response, visit the Texas Tribune’s website.

Officers placed Mireles on the sidewalk just beyond one of the school’s exits and started treating her wounds. A medic later told investigators he did not see any ambulances, though video footage showed two parked just past the corner of the building, about 100 feet away.

The chaotic scene exemplified the flawed medical response – captured in video footage, investigative documents, interviews and radio traffic – that experts said undermined the chances of survival for some victims of the May 24 massacre. Two teachers and 19 students died.

Law enforcement’s well-documented failure to confront the shooter who terrorized the school for 77 minutes was the most serious problem in getting victims timely care, experts said. But previously unreleased records obtained by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and The Washington Post for the first time show that communication lapses and muddled lines of authority among medical responders further hampered treatment.

Three victims who emerged from the school with a pulse later died. In the case of two of those victims, critical resources were not available when medics expected they would be, delaying hospital treatment for Mireles, 44, and student Xavier Lopez, 10, records show.

Another student, Jacklyn “Jackie” Cazares, 9, likely survived for more than an hour after being shot and was promptly placed in an ambulance after medics finally gained access to her classroom. She died in transport.

The disjointed medical response frustrated medics while delaying efforts to get ambulances, air transport and other emergency services to victims. Medical helicopters with critical supplies of blood tried to land at the school, but an unidentified fire department official told them to wait at an airport 3 miles away. Dozens of parked police vehicles blocked the paths of ambulances trying to reach victims.

Multiple cameras worn by officers and one on the dashboard of a police car showed just two ambulances positioned outside the school when the shooter was killed. That was not nearly enough for the 10 or more gunshot victims then still alive, though additional ambulances began arriving 10 minutes later. Six students, including one who was seriously wounded, were taken to a hospital in a school bus with no trained medics on board, according to Texas EMS records.

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Dozens of officers from federal, state and local agencies, as well as school buses, parked in the street leading to the school.

Two ambulances were at the scene when police killed the gunman. But additional EMS responders struggled to get there.

Uvalde EMS radio traffic (12:58 p.m.) “10-4 we are [ inaudible ] at Grove Street and Grove Street is blocked off by law enforcement.”

One minute later, six students, including one who was seriously wounded, were taken to a hospital in a school bus with no trained medics on board.

Some law enforcement cars were left locked and could not quickly be moved, forcing medics to frantically try various routes to the school, crisscrossing through residents’ yards.

Thirty-three minutes after police killed the gunman, an ambulance struggled to access the school via South Grove Street.

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Although helicopters were available, none were used to carry victims directly from the school. At least four patients who survived were flown by helicopter to a more fully equipped trauma center in San Antonio after first being driven by ambulance to a nearby hospital or airport.

In public statements made since May, law enforcement officials have defended their officers’ actions as reasonable under difficult circumstances. Federal, state and local agencies that responded to the shooting have not directly addressed the medical response, nor did they answer detailed questions from the news organizations that worked jointly on this investigation.

Eric Epley, executive director of the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council, a nonprofit that helps coordinate trauma care in Southwest Texas during mass-casualty events, said medics encountered challenges, including a faulty radio system.

“These scenes are inherently confusing, challenging, and chaotic,” Epley said in an email. He later added, “We remain steadfast that the decisions by the on-scene medical leadership were sound and appropriate.”

The Texas Rangers, an arm of the state Department of Public Safety, are investigating what went wrong in Uvalde, including whether any victims might have survived if they had received prompt medical care. The local district attorney has said she will use that investigation to determine whether to charge anyone with a crime, including law enforcement officers.

Mireles, an avid hiker and CrossFit enthusiast who was fiercely proud of her college-graduate daughter, was shot within the first minutes of the attack, according to interviews students gave to investigators and a DPS analysis of gunfire obtained by the news organizations.

It’s difficult to know whether Mireles or anyone else who died that day might have survived their wounds, in part because local officials have refused to release autopsy reports. But footage shows that Mireles was conscious and responsive when she was pulled from the classroom, an indicator that she probably had survivable wounds, according to medical experts.

“Had medics gotten to her quickly, there’s a good chance she would’ve survived,” said Babak Sarani, director of critical care at George Washington University Hospital.

The flawed coordination among police and medical crews echoes missteps during other mass shootings, despite the development of recommended practices after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. In several of those cases, the communication problems resulted in delays in getting medical care for victims.

Medics on helicopters and in ambulances who responded to the Uvalde shooting told investigators they were confused about who was in charge, where they should be stationed and how many victims to expect. Some of them pleaded to be allowed closer to the scene. In the absence of clear guidance, experts said medics did the best they could while trying to save lives.

“They were told, essentially, to go to the airport and wait,” according to an interview the Texas Rangers conducted with Julie Lewis, the regional manager for AirLIFE, an air medical transport service that sent three helicopters from the greater San Antonio area. “They couldn’t figure out who was in command.”

Pleading for help

The morning of May 24 was warm and sunny in Uvalde, the seat of a rural county of about 25,000 residents near the Texas border with Mexico. It was one of the last days of class, and teachers had planned a festive, celebratory day.

Mireles left her home wearing a flowery blouse and pair of black pants, feeling happy, her daughter said.

“My dad had just told her how beautiful she looked,” Adalynn Ruiz, 23, recalled in a text message to a reporter.

About two dozen fourth graders were in Rooms 111 and 112, adjoining classrooms, that day. They included Jackie, who relished cherry limeades with extra cherries, and Xavier, who loved art class and couldn’t wait to start middle school.

They’d just finished a student awards ceremony and settled into watching the Disney movie “Lilo & Stitch” when a teenage gunman dressed in black scaled the school’s fence and fired shots at 11:32 a.m.

Hearing the gunfire, Mireles quickly called her husband.

“There’s somebody shooting at the school,” she said, Ruben Ruiz recalled in an interview with investigators.

“We’re coming up,” he told her as he drove to the school with a state police officer, who later described the comment to investigators. “We’ll be there.”

The gunman got there first, entering Mireles’ classroom and firing his AR-15-style rifle. Officers rushed into the school minutes later and approached her classroom, but they retreated after the gunman fired through the door, grazing two of them.

Ruiz, who declined to comment for this report but spoke with state investigators, ran into the hallway at 11:36 a.m., according to video footage. But none of the officers tried to enter the classrooms, where the gunman continued to fire sporadically.

Desperate to reach his wife, Ruiz told the other officers what he knew.

“He’s in my wife’s classroom,” he said, according to the footage. He later recalled to investigators that it felt “like my soul had left my body.”

About twenty minutes later, his wife called again.

At 11:56 a.m., he shouted, “She says she’s shot!”

That information was a key indication that officers were dealing with an active shooter, not a barricaded subject as school district police Chief Pete Arredondo incorrectly assumed, according to a legislative report on the shooting. But Ruiz’s comment did not change how law enforcement officers, following Arredondo’s lead, responded to the attack.

The school district’s active-shooter protocol designated the chief as the incident commander. Arredondo has repeatedly defended his role in the delay, telling Texas lawmakers investigating the massacre that he did not consider himself to be in charge. The Uvalde school board fired Arredondo in August, amid sharp public criticism of the police response to the shooting.

Trapped inside her classroom, Mireles tied a plastic bag around her arm to help slow the blood loss, one of her students told investigators. Another child in Room 112 told investigators that Mireles tried to protect him. The boy was hit in the back of his shoulder but survived.

At least two students used Mireles’ phone to call 911, begging officers to send help.

Officers confiscated Ruiz’s gun and forced him to wait outside the school, where he told “anybody that would get next to me” that his wife was in danger, according to his law enforcement interview. He tried to get back in, but fellow officers stopped him. They later told investigators they had seized his gun for his own safety.

Inside Rooms 111 and 112, students anxiously tried to get officers’ attention. They knew that for Mireles, there was little time to spare.

One girl later recalled to investigators that Mireles “was telling us she was going to die.”

“We as a nation are not ready”

More than two decades after the Columbine school shooting shocked the nation, key failures continue to repeat themselves.

After that shooting, officers across the country received training on what they should do first when a mass shooting is reported: Subdue the shooter and stop the killing. Next, trainers tell first responders, they must “stop the dying.”

Over time, that insistence on prompt, effective medical care became an established mantra, as did the idea that all first responders – police, fire and EMS – should work under a joint command overseeing and coordinating the response. An overall incident commander is supposed to coordinate with the head paramedic or lead fire department supervisor to organize the medical response, experts said.

“If you don’t have a system, the whole response goes awry,” said Bob Harrison, a former police chief and a homeland security researcher at the Rand Corp., a think tank based in California.

A Justice Department review of the response to the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people found that the police and fire departments’ decision to operate separate command posts for hours led to a lack of coordination.

A review by local authorities of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shooting that killed 12 people discovered that the delayed establishment of a unified command led to communication problems between police and fire responders, slowing medical care for victims.

“We as a nation are not ready,” said Sarani, the director of critical care at George Washington University Hospital. “The air assets and the ground assets do not talk to each other very well. The fire, the police do not talk to each other very well.”

Experts said that the Uvalde shooting response appeared to lack both an overall incident commander and someone clearly in charge of coordinating the emergency medical response.

The rural community’s emergency medical services are contracted out to private companies. On that day in May, Stephen Stephens, the director of Uvalde EMS, was in charge of organizing helicopters and ambulances responding to Robb Elementary, he later told investigators.

“My job was to manage assets,” he said, noting that Juan Martinez, his deputy, instructed medics arriving at the scene.

After police breached the classrooms where the shooter had been holed up, Stephens said he handed command over to the fire chief of neighboring Medina County. The Medina fire chief declined to comment to the news organizations.

It’s unclear what information Stephens had about how many victims first responders should expect to find. Multiple medics expressed confusion over who was in charge of the medical response and where to go.

“There was no EMS command and control,” said Julio Perez, a medic for AirLIFE, who told investigators he was pleading to help. “Nobody could tell me anything.”

His account was backed up by Lewis, the manager for the air transport service, who said several of her medics were upset. “They feel like the resources weren’t used as they should have been.”

The school district declined to release its active-shooter response plans or protocols and did not answer questions posed by ProPublica, the Tribune and The Post. Separately, the state has fought the release of the active-shooter plans it requires school districts to submit, with the backing of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office determines whether government information is open to the public. The news organizations also have sued state and city officials for some records related to the shooting and its response.

The city of Uvalde did not respond to detailed questions about the communication between police and medics or about its training for mass shootings, citing ongoing litigation. But a spokesperson said in an email that the city’s police department has not conducted any formal training with Uvalde EMS, a nonprofit that provides emergency medical services for the city and county.

A document from a March active shooter training conducted by the school district, later published by San Antonio television station KSAT, provides only general guidance on how police and EMS should work together.

The plan states that EMS, fire and law enforcement need to know “the exact location of the injured, as well as the number and types of injuries to expect upon their arrival.” It does not detail a process for communicating that information.

Stephens, Martinez and representatives for Uvalde EMS did not respond to requests for comment, including queries sent by certified letter. Five other private ambulance companies seen responding to the shooting also did not answer written questions or phone calls seeking comment.

Confusion and delays

Martinez told investigators that he directed other medics to park their ambulances nearby until they knew whether it was safe to move closer. Experts said it’s not unusual to keep ambulances at a short distance from crime scenes with active shooters.

He soon identified a pressing obstacle: As dozens of officers descended on the scene, they left their vehicles blocking the roads that ambulances needed to get to the school.

Martinez instructed the county’s two dispatchers to ask law enforcement to create a clear path.

“We were anticipating essentially just grabbing whatever patients we had and running out,” he later told investigators.

While outside, Martinez and a second medic treated a Uvalde police lieutenant who had been grazed in the head when the gunman shot through the classroom door. Then they waited, with no clear sense of the horror unfolding inside the school.

“We didn’t know the numbers of patients, number of injuries, number of fatalities,” Martinez recalled in interviews with investigators. “Nobody was relaying that.”

Other emergency crews were also struggling to get crucial information and figure out where to go.

The crew of an AirLIFE helicopter grounded in Uvalde for maintenance heard the unfolding chaos on the radio and offered to help. The crew later told investigators that the emergency responders they talked to had rejected their assistance repeatedly. They did not provide the names of those responders.

“Nobody knew what was really going on,” said Perez, one of the helicopter medics. He said the officials told his crew to “stand by, stay there – don’t come.”

With no one clearly in charge of the police or medical responses, an elite Border Patrol tactical team that began arriving at the school at 12:10 p.m. assumed both roles, according to a July report by a state House committee tasked with investigating the response.

The team, which typically handles dangerous situations involving migrants at the border, devised a plan to breach the adjoining classrooms while its medics set up a triage station.

At 12:50 p.m., a Border Patrol-led unit that included local police breached the classrooms. The gunman sprung from a closet and fired. They shot back, killing him.

The team gave the all-clear.

Officers who had packed the hallway now filled the classrooms. Ruiz ran back into the school, looking for his wife. Children lay on the floor, many near or on top of each other, most of them dead.

“I can still feel the heart”

Officers quickly began taking victims to a triage area inside the school, carrying some by their limbs. With so many law enforcement officers and first responders at the scene, there was little space to move. Some children were placed in a line on each side of the hallway.

One local medic later complained to investigators that the response was so chaotic that emergency crews were stepping on victims.

Several medics expressed frustration to investigators that law enforcement officers brought them students who could not be saved.

“You’re doing this wrong,” Martinez, the Uvalde EMS deputy supervisor, recalled yelling to police after being handed a child with a significant head injury. “There’s nothing I can do for this patient.”

Within minutes, medics determined that several critically wounded patients with pulses needed to be urgently taken to a hospital where surgeons could provide advanced care.

A girl matching the description of Jackie – wearing the same red shirt and black shorts she’d had on earlier in the day – was placed in one of the two ambulances at the school. The 9-year-old, described by her family as a “firecracker” for being so full of life, died on the way to the hospital.

Andrew Aviles, a regional trainer for the Border Patrol’s medic team, began treating a young boy, doing everything he could to revive him.

“I can still feel the heart,” Aviles yelled, as he later recounted to investigators in an interview punctuated with sobs. “I need a fucking plane. I need a helicopter down. I need to get a kid inside there!”

The boy needed to be taken to San Antonio’s University Hospital, the nearest Level 1 trauma center, which is equipped to handle the most serious cases. It was about 45 minutes away by helicopter, 90 minutes in an ambulance.

The child seen in the police body-camera footage fits the description of Xavier. A law enforcement document listing what students were wearing indicates that Xavier had on a black shirt, blue jeans and black-and-white shoes. That is similar to the clothing worn by the boy Aviles was treating, the officer video shows.

Aviles had heard that the wounded were being airlifted from a field on the west side of the school, so he and other medics put the boy on a stretcher and began rushing him out to the dusty patch of grass at 12:56 p.m.

There was no helicopter.

Although at least five medical helicopters responded to the shooting, not one picked up anyone from Rooms 111 and 112 at the school, according to a review of flight data, satellite imagery and photographs, as well as interviews with air crew members by Texas Rangers.

Epley, the executive director of the regional coordinating agency for trauma care, said it was not safe to have medical helicopters at a scene with an active shooter. But Uvalde police could be heard on radio transmissions asking where medical helicopters were 10 minutes after the gunman was killed. It took 15 minutes more for the first to land near the school.

Spokespeople for the ambulance helicopter companies, Air Methods, which includes AirLIFE, and Air Evac Lifeteam, both of which responded to the shooting, said they rely on local medics to decide who should be airlifted. They declined to respond to detailed questions.

Each passing second dimmed the odds for the boy who appeared to be Xavier.

Dread set in when Aviles felt softness on the back of the child’s head, indicating a significant injury. The wounds were consistent with those detailed in the autopsy report shared with Xavier’s family, which revealed that the boy had been shot five times.

“I was like, ‘Guys, he’s …,'” Aviles said, pausing for a moment to take a breath as he spoke with investigators. “That took the wind out of my sails.”

First responders waited 11 minutes for a helicopter but decided to drive to San Antonio when it didn’t arrive. At that point, the boy had already gone into cardiac arrest. Overwhelmed medics enlisted state Trooper Matthew Neese to help with CPR in the ambulance.

Once a gunshot victim’s heart stops beating, the likelihood of survival diminishes sharply, experts said. A patient in that condition should immediately be brought to an operating room, where a surgeon can attempt to stop internal bleeding.

State records show that Neese did not have an EMT or paramedic license in Texas, but he performed CPR on Xavier for more than 30 minutes while a medic tried to treat the boy’s wounds. The ambulance diverted to Medina Regional Hospital in Hondo, about 40 miles from Uvalde, where doctors declared the child dead shortly after 2 p.m., according to his family.

A helicopter arrived near Robb Elementary at 1:15 p.m., eight minutes after the ambulance departed.

Hospital officials did not respond to a request for comment and neither did Neese. The trooper later attended Xavier’s funeral, according to the boy’s family.

Reached on his cellphone, Aviles declined to comment, referring questions to his supervisors at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In a statement, a CBP spokesperson said the agency is investigating the role of its officers in the response and could not comment while that was ongoing.

Xavier’s mother, Felicha Martinez, said an awful premonition hit her as she stood outside the school waiting for news. Her body went limp and she collapsed. His father, Abel Lopez, searched for any sign of his son, peering between the buses blocking the view of the school.

They have since learned bits and pieces about what happened to their son but are left with questions, including why Xavier wasn’t taken to a hospital by helicopter.

“If the cops had done their job, the medics might’ve had a chance,” Lopez said.

Martinez added: “I’m so full of anger. I don’t know how to put into words how much I am hurting.”

“Don’t give up”

On the day of the shooting, emergency responders frantically tried to keep Mireles alive on the sidewalk outside Robb Elementary. She was deteriorating quickly. Within minutes, her heart had stopped and first responders began to administer CPR.

More ambulances arrived at the school, but it wasn’t until 16 minutes after the breach that medics put her inside one.

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Eva Mireles was carried out of her classroom, Room 112, and through the school hallway by four police officers, her husband following behind.

A Border Patrol medic said in an interview with investigators: “I asked the guys, ‘Hey let’s not work on her here.’ But we look to the right and there’s no ambulances. So we had to work on her there.”

But there were two ambulances parked about 100 feet away.

Medics laid Mireles on the ground and performed chest compressions.

She lay on the ground for more than 10 minutes, during which six ambulances arrived and two left. It’s unclear why Mireles was not immediately put into one of these ambulances.

Ultimately, medics moved Mireles off the ground and into an ambulance.

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“Come on, ma’am, don’t give up,” a voice can be heard saying in a state trooper’s body-camera footage.

By then, the teacher’s chances of survival had sunk.

In the ambulance, medics began a blood transfusion and used an automatic compression device to try to get the teacher’s heart pumping again. They gave her fluids and intubated her.

But they did not take her to a hospital, a decision some experts described as a mistake and others said could indicate that medics thought Mireles had no chance of survival.

First responders continued CPR in the ambulance for about 40 minutes before the chief medic for Uvalde EMS declared her dead.

The ambulance that Mireles was inside never left the school curb.

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans – and engages with them – about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

In the year since the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Tex., much of the blame for law enforcement’s decision to wait more than an hour to confront the gunman has centered on the former chief of the school district’s small police force. But a Washington Post investigation has found that the costly delay was also driven by the inaction of an array of senior and supervising law enforcement officers who remain on the job and had direct knowledge a shooting was taking place inside classrooms but failed to swiftly stop the gunman.

The Post’s review of dozens of hours of body camera videos, post-shooting interviews with officers, audio from dispatch communications and law enforcement licensing records identified at least seven officers who stalled even as evidence mounted that children were still in danger. Some were the first to arrive, while others were called in for their expertise.

All are still employed by the same agencies they worked for that day. One was commended for his actions that day.

For many families of victims in the small Texas town, promises from top state law enforcement and government officials to hold all those responsible for the 77-minute delay in stopping the shooter today feel empty. Instead, they have learned to live alongside officers who faced no repercussions and remain in positions of authority in the community.

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The officers shop at the same grocery stores as the families. They umpire weekly softball games. They live in the same neighborhoods. In some cases, they are blood relatives.

“When we see them, they put their heads down,” said Felicha Martinez, whose son was killed in the attack and whose cousin is a police officer who responded to the shooting. “They know they did wrong and wish they could go back and do it over again.”

Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee has said she is still investigating the shooting response, leaving open the possibility that officers will face charges. If they did, however, it would be highly unusual, as officers rarely face criminal prosecution for missteps in crises.

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The Texas Department of Public Safety opened an investigation into a half a dozen officers for wrongdoing but officially cleared almost all of them. DPS chief Col. Steven C. McCraw has said he would personally resign if his agency “as an institution” failed Uvalde. He insists it did not.

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In all, four of the nearly 200 officers who responded from state and local agencies were fired after superiors found they made critical mistakes, according to public announcements. Four resigned, two of whom had loved ones who were killed that day. Nearly 190 federal officers, the majority from U.S. Border Patrol, were also on hand, but those agencies have denied several public records requests by The Post seeking information on their employment status.

Two officers the Department of Public Safety decided to dismiss are still employed in law enforcement, and others found ways to soften the blow from being fired or resigning after the massacre.

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One senior Texas Ranger was given termination papers in January but remains on the force, state licensing records show. A DPS spokesman said he is currently suspended with pay, over four months later. The acting Uvalde police chief the day of the shooting resigned but was reelected to a county office he had held along with his law enforcement post. The first state police officer disciplined after the massacre was given the option to resign and now works for a local sheriff’s office.

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The officers named in this article did not respond to detailed questions from The Post outlining its findings or declined to comment in multiple requests for interviews, citing the still-open investigation and pending civil lawsuits.

Many of the families, frustrated by the lack of accountability, have instead turned their focus to changing Texas’s lax gun laws, though thus far, the state legislature has been reluctant to do so. The disappointment with authorities and lawmakers has left them trying to make peace with how little has changed since 19 students and two teachers were killed.

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“We all make mistakes, but this was a fatal mistake,” Javier Cazares said of the officers who stalled as the gunman kept shooting. He is haunted by the thought that his daughter, Jacklyn, 9, might have survived if they had entered sooner. “I hope it keeps them up at night too, but who knows?”

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‘No active shooting’

The first indication something was terribly wrong in Uvalde arrived even before the gunman set foot in Robb Elementary.

After shooting his grandmother in the face, Salvador Ramos stole her truck and crashed it near a funeral home. Bystanders called 911 after he fired and walked toward the school.

What happened next has been repeatedly scrutinized by Texas lawmakers, federal investigators and community leaders trying to understand the dual horrors of that day: how an 18-year-old former student killed 21 people and why officers waited so long to stop him.

The Post’s reconstruction of what happened inside Robb Elementary last May 24 provides new details of key mistakes up and down the chain of command, starting at 11:31 a.m., when the first officer arrived at the school.

Body- and dash-camera footage shows that Uvalde Police Sgt. Daniel Coronado was the first supervising officer at the school. He arrived before Ramos entered the building at 11:33 a.m. The footage shows him parked nearby and taking cover as gunshots erupt. Coronado told investigators he then drove to the other side of Robb Elementary, thinking the gunman would try to flee in that direction.

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“I still couldn’t believe that his whole mission was to take out kids. Never. It doesn’t cross your mind,” Coronado said in a post-shooting interview with investigators. “I think at that moment I still was thinking, okay, maybe he’s engaging officers or he’s just shooting to get away.”

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Body-camera video captures Coronado running toward Robb Elementary with Uvalde school district police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo. City police Sgt. Donald Page is already inside. None are captured in available video and audio records stating they have command or otherwise establishing who would lead the response — one of the fundamental errors of the police response, experts say. Even as more officers continued to arrive, body-camera footage and other records show confusion throughout the ranks as to what the next steps would be.

Uvalde police policy urges officers to act quickly, stating that they should move swiftly to the shooter and “stop the violence.” It also notes that, ideally, the first two to five officers should form a team and enter the building. The footage shows that at least three officers were just beyond school grounds together before Ramos walked into the building.

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Once inside, the gunman began firing as he burst into rooms 111 and 112, where he shot at dozens of children who had gathered to watch movies on the last day of school.

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Two groups of officers — including several supervisors — gathered on each side of the hallway outside those classrooms.

“It’s an AR! It’s an AR! It’s an AR!” an officer yelled.

Uvalde SWAT commander Sgt. Eduardo Canales and Uvalde Lt. Javier Martinez were injured by fragments of building material from gunshots in rooms 111 and 112. (Video: Robb Elementary School surveillance video obtained by The Washington Post)

Minutes later, the shooter fired several rounds and two supervisors — Uvalde SWAT commander Sgt. Eduardo Canales and Uvalde Lt. Javier Martinez — were injured by fragments of building material.

Startled, Canales tells fellow officers, “We gotta get in there. He’s gonna keep shooting.” Martinez also acknowledged the urgency of the crisis, later trying to approach the classrooms before eventually retreating. In his post-shooting interview with investigators, stating he thought children were probably inside: “It’s a school. You’re going to assume there’s kids in there.”

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But none of the officers shift to an active-shooter response. At 11:40 a.m. — four minutes after the officers are injured — Coronado radioed that the suspect was barricaded, according to a review of body-camera footage and available audio.

The Uvalde police department defines an active shooter as an armed individual likely to use “deadly force in an ongoing manner” and who has injured, killed or threatened other people, according to the agency’s officer guidelines. In a barricaded shooter scenario, an assailant is contained with little or no ability to harm others.

Coronado told investigators that he saw no signs of injuries, leading him to assume no children were at risk — even though during a lockdown, students are trained to stay quiet.

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Texas Department of Public Safety radio communications show dispatchers repeat the assessment that officers are responding to a barricaded shooter at least 10 times, spreading the word to state officers that Ramos was not an active shooter threat.

“You don’t see any bodies, you don’t see any blood, you don’t see anybody yelling, screaming for help,” Coronado told investigators later. “Those are motivators for you to say, ‘Hey, get going, move.’ But if you don’t have that, then slow down.”

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But officers soon started getting information that children were inside, The Post review found.

At 11:42 a.m. — nine minutes after the gunman stepped inside Robb Elementary — Coronado’s body camera captured audio of another officer confirming with school administrators that students were probably in the classroom.

Coronado is heard on a body camera saying: “Oh no, oh no.” But the available body-camera footage does not show him relaying this information to anyone else. Unbeknown to Coronado, his 10-year-old cousin, Xavier Lopez, was inside, struggling to stay alive from multiple gunshot wounds.

Eleven minutes after the gunman entered Robb Elementary, at least 10 officers were in the hallways and more than five law enforcement agencies were on scene. (Video: Imogen Piper, Brian Monroe/The Washington Post)

Officers at the scene gave at least 12 orders to hold back and not enter the classrooms despite hearing the gunfire blasts, The Post’s investigation found.

Several supervisors suspected there were children inside. “As much as he was shooting, I mean, he had to be shooting at something,” Page told investigators later. But time and again, radio communications and body-cam video captured supervisors telling each other and subordinates to wait. Uvalde County Constable Johnny Field tells the others, “There’s no active shooting.”

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Gunshots, cries for help

Texas Ranger Ryan Kindell arrived around noon, about 30 minutes after the gunman entered the school. At the time, he was one of the highest-ranking Department of Public Safety officers at the scene. He told investigators he immediately recognized that someone needed to take charge and started organizing the responders stationed outside.

Yet he, too, failed to challenge the conclusion that Ramos was a barricaded subject — even as the gunman continued to fire and further information confirming children were inside reached officers, body-camera footage shows.

About 10 minutes after Kindell arrives, an officer’s body-camera footage captures the moment a dispatcher reveals a student had called 911 from inside one of the rooms. Kindell walks by and Canales and Field are in earshot as this information is shared loudly to those nearby, the footage shows.

That detail was quickly shared with Paul Guerrero, acting commander with the U.S. Border Patrol’s elite tactical unit, who arrived a minute later, according to body-camera footage. A rifle shield is brought in by a U.S. marshal. But Guerrero did not breach the classroom with his team for almost 40 more minutes, according to The Post’s review of available post-shooting interviews and videos.

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“There’s victims in the room with us?” Guerrero asked an officer, body-cam footage shows, as he stands in the hallway outside the classrooms.

“Child on the phone, multiple victims,” the officer responds.

Despite that confirmation, officers continue focusing on trying to find a key to one of the two doors. Investigators now believe neither was probably locked. Arredondo repeatedly insisted on finding a “master key” and urged others to stay back.

“Tell them to f— wait,” he told officers in the hallway.

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At 12:21 p.m., the gunman fired his final burst of shots. Kindell, Guerrero, Coronado, Martinez, Field and Canales visibly reacted to the gunfire , but video footage and audio records show they did not change their response. The breach team led by Guerrero waited until 12:50 p.m. to enter the room and kill Ramos.

Law enforcement’s overall 77-minute delay came with potentially deadly consequences.

Three victims emerged from the school with a pulse but later died. For teacher Eva Mireles, 44, and Lopez, 10, critical resources were not available when medics expected they would be, delaying hospital treatment, an investigation by The Post, the Texas Tribune and ProPublica found last year. Another student, Cazares, 9, likely survived for more than an hour after being shot and died in an ambulance.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) initially said that a “quick response” by law enforcement had saved lives. But two days after the massacre, authorities acknowledged officers had left a gunman in the rooms with children for more than an hour. Outrage grew as parents prepared to bury their children — some left barely recognizable by the AR-15-style weapon’s carnage.

An award for valor

In the initial aftermath, the state Department of Public Safety’s director put the blame for the botched response squarely on one man: Arredondo.

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McCraw said the school police chief had incorrectly determined that the gunman was no longer an active shooter and that no more children were at risk. Arredondo oversaw the Uvalde district’s six-person police department. He has declined multiple interview requests but told the Texas Tribune he did not consider himself in charge of the scene.

Nearly a month after the shooting, he was placed on leave. Two months later, he was fired.

But earlier this year, Arredondo managed to upgrade his discharge status, which indicates the circumstances under which an officer leaves an agency, improving his prospects of future employment in law enforcement. The school district is attempting to overturn that.

A Texas House investigative report published in July spread blame across every law enforcement agency responding to the attack, noting more experienced agencies also failed to take charge.

A handful of other officers faced reprimand. Kindell was ordered fired, with McCraw writing in his termination letter in early January that the Ranger “should have recognized the incident was and remained an active shooter situation,” the Tribune reported. But records obtained exclusively by The Post show Kindell is still employed with the Department of Public Safety.

Travis Considine, a spokesman for DPS, characterized Kindell’s dismissal letter as a “preliminary decision” that will not be finalized until the officer is given a chance to meet with McCraw. In the meantime, Kindell has been “suspended with pay.”

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Six other senior and supervising officers who The Post found were in a position to hear gunshots but did not immediately act, remain on the job. One officer — Guerrero, who took more than a half-hour to mount the assault that killed Ramos — later received a Department of Homeland Security award for valor for his actions that day.

Of the nearly 200 responding officers from state and local agencies, around 180 remain in law enforcement, according to records reviewed by The Post. Nine left their posts for jobs in other agencies.

For victims’ relatives, that tally is infuriating.

“Anyone who knew and sat there and listened to him reload, they should all lose their jobs,” said Brett Cross, the uncle and guardian of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, whom he called his son. “Anybody who made an order that they shouldn’t go in should face possible jail time.”

Unsatisfied with Arredondo’s firing, Cross camped for 10 days last fall outside the offices of Hal Harrel, then the Uvalde school district superintendent, pressuring officials to make good on their promises to hold officers accountable. His demands were partially met: The school district voted in October to suspend its entire police force. But he still wants to see more officers disciplined for inaction — and doesn’t hesitate to confront them when he sees them in Uvalde.

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At one City Council meeting last year, Cross recalled, he stood toe-to-toe with the man he thought he recognized from one of the police body cam videos circulating on the internet, showing officers standing around while children were being killed.

“Is this you?” he recalled asking, showing the man an image on his cellphone of a large, bearded police officer in the Robb Elementary School hallway.

The man said it was. “What the f—, dude?” Cross spat out instinctively. He said the officer smiled and walked away: “Have a nice day.”

Mariano Pargas Jr. — who was serving as interim chief of the Uvalde police the day of the attack — was also soon suspended and later resigned. He is captured on body-cam footage telling Guerrero that a child had called from inside the room with the gunman, but like the others, available video and audio records show, he failed to take charge or push officers to enter and kill the gunman.

The suspension didn’t stop Pargas from running for reelection as a county commissioner.

Cazares who lost his daughter Jackie in the massacre — had never considered political office, but when he learned one of the officers condemned for inaction the day of the slaughter was running uncontested, he decided to challenge him.

“No, we can’t have that,” Cazares recounted thinking while campaigning as a write-in candidate.

But on Election Day, voters in Uvalde reelected every incumbent who was in office the day of the tragedy — including Pargas.

That night, Kimberly Mata-Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed, wrote on Twitter that, “I wanted to send a message, but, instead, the state of Texas sent me a message: my daughter’s murder wasn’t enough.”

‘No officer has to save you’

There have been moments in the past year where Uvalde families said life seemed almost normal despite the tunnel of their unbearable loss. There were quinceañeras and graduations that were almost enjoyable. And then there are the moments of anguish.

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Martinez, whose son Xavier Lopez was killed, comes from a family filled with law enforcement officers — including Coronado. These days, they have no communication.

“If we were to run into each other, they try to say hi,” she said, “but I want nothing to do with them.”

The parents, siblings and friends of those killed relive their agonizing stories over and over again in interviews, in therapy and in legislative hearings where they push for gun control. Sometimes they read prepared remarks from their phone’s Notes app or paper. Some can deliver gut punches on the spot through breathless gulps and hot tears.

“Tess didn’t have a choice in life or death, but you as leaders have a choice of what my daughter’s life will be remembered for,” Veronica Mata said about her slain daughter during an April bill hearing. “Will she die in vain? Or will her life have saved another child? Maybe, your child.”

Yet while the broader gun control community has been supportive, in Uvalde, the victims’ families face critics. They have been accused of making things political. Their unapologetic advocacy makes neighbors — especially those flying “Thin Blue Line” flags — uncomfortable. Local clergymen have criticized them in newspaper op-eds as thirsting for revenge instead of forgiveness. It hurts, a few said, but it doesn’t discourage them.

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For Mata-Rubio, it’s the memory of her daughter Lexi that keeps her going. While sitting in a lawmaker’s office recently, the mother of four other children said she looked up and felt like she saw Lexi with her, biting her nails and bored while playing on her iPad, wanting to go home.

The apparitions remind her what she’s fighting for.

Mata-Rubio said she has too many what-ifs of her own to worry about whether the cops feel regret, shame or sorrow about their actions that day.

“I should never have left her in the hands of anyone else,” she said. “It was my job to protect her.”

But the massacre also left her convinced of something else: “No officer has to save you. They have immunity, they won’t face punishment. This country needs to be aware of that.”