TheQuartering [7/14/2022]
According to TheNewYorkPost:
The cop husband of slain Uvalde teacher Eva Mireles was caught on video checking his phone during the massacre — before he was allegedly stopped from saving her, a Texas lawmaker revealed Wednesday.
Ruben Ruiz, an officer with the school police department, came under scrutiny after new security footage showed him picking up his phone — bearing a Punisher lock screen — while responding to the May 24 massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead, including his wife.
Texas Rep. Joe Moody took to Twitter Wednesday afternoon to out Ruiz, saying the cop had been in touch with his dying wife after she was shot while shielding her students from the gunman in her classroom.
“This is the husband of teacher Eva Mireles, who contacted him on his phone from her classroom while he was on-scene to say that she’d been shot and was dying,” Moody tweeted.
“I’d not planned to speak publicly until the report was released, but I couldn’t say nothing seeing this man, who’s lost everything, maligned as if he was indifferent or actively malicious. Context matters,” Moody continued in another post.
The moment Ruiz checks his phone was part of chilling surveillance footage from inside the school showing cops’ botched — and excruciatingly delayed — response to the slaughter that lasted more than an hour at Robb Elementary School. The video was released in full — with childrens’ screams edited out — on Tuesday by the Austin American-Statesman and local TV station KVUE.
The video shows Ruiz quickly checking his phone down the hallway before a barrage of gunfire rings out down the hallway seconds later, sending other officers retreating. Looking clearly scared, he again checks his phone before putting it back in his pocket.
“To those who haven’t bothered to read even the news that’s been reported in your rush to judgment, he attempted to engage but was removed from the building and disarmed. We’ll have much to say about the police response, but no criticism of this officer,” Moody concluded.