The girl who played dead in Uvalde
You’ve probably already heard of one fourth-grader in Uvalde who smeared herself with the blood of her dead friend, intending to pretend to be dead herself if the shooter returned to her classroom from the adjoining room where he was at the time.
I consider this an impressive display of resourcefulness and composure in one so young. From where did she get the idea? Movies? Pretend play? She was incredibly brave – and she also is the girl who took her dead teacher’s cellphone from the body and made many 911 calls describing the situation and asking for help.
This girl and her surviving classmates have witnessed and experienced an encounter with the deepest evil, and that is difficult for anyone much less a child of her age. She is understandably traumatized and will need to learn how to see herself as a heroine – which she is – rather than as a victim. It will take time, but I hope she makes it.
The interview with this girl is hard to even hear about. She is neither shown nor heard in the video, except for a still photo from the past; what she said in the interview is described by the interviewer, but that’s bad enough.
The killing of her teacher is one of the most chilling parts of the story the girl tells, and once again it illustrates what I consider to be the psychological sadism of the killer. It reminds me of some of the things the Columbine killers said to their victims, grim cinema-like “jokes” as though playing a role in a violent movie. It bolsters my previous belief that Ramos was a psychopath, although “psychopath” is merely a descriptive word that tells us little to nothing about how a person becomes one.
A couple of things this girl’s interview makes clear is that the school went on lockdown very early. You will see when you watch it that the murdered teacher was just about to lock the door when she encountered the killer. Another thing that is made clear is that the girl made the 911 calls while the murderer was in an adjacent room; that might explain why he didn’t hear her and come back to kill her, which I had wondered about earlier. The effectiveness of her act of smearing blood on herself in order to effectively play dead was never tested because apparently the perp never returned to her room.
[NOTE: By the way, why are there so many girls among the dead? Did the perp especially target girls? Or was it just by chance? Five boys and fourteen girls died. I don’t know the breakdown of boys and girls among the wounded.]
A very brave and resourceful girl – I do hope that she will be able to deal with all this, and become a well-adjusted teenager and adult. I had read earlier this week of a girl about that age, who survived the murders of her parents, brother and sister, by the captain of the ship that her father and chartered, off Florida, years ago. She wound up set adrift in a small life raft, was rescued by a merchant ship when she was on the point of death by exposure. That child was raised by her aunt and uncle, grew up, married and has grandchildren now. So there is hope for this child.
My daughter and I know many small towns in South Texas, although not Uvalde – and our heart breaks for them, especially as my cherished and adored grandson is only a year old, and my daughter hopes to make it as a real estate agent and eventually move with him to a small town north of San Antonio.
A small town, where everyone knows everyone else, and establishments are human-sized and relatable. I have a feeling that many of the local PD members will be ostracized by their neighbors, over the failure to act promptly and effectively.
My daughter also wonders if the shooter was molested as a child by one of his mother’s boyfriends. He seems to have been troubled and anti-social in a way which molestation would account for. My daughter also wonders if he really had targeted the school, or was it just a matter of random chance, a handy location just adjacent to where he crashed his grandmothers’ truck. She thinks he might just as well have stormed into a restaurant, a business, a convalescent hospital, after thinking that he had killed his grandmother and decided impulsively to go out in a blaze of glory. We also both wonder about his family – parents, the grandparents and all. They all seem to have been, as current parlance has it, justice-system involved.
Sgt. Mom:
Yes, some kids are very resilient.
The perp targeted the school. He messaged someone on Facebook about it some minutes prior to doing it. See this:
It actually wasn’t posted publicly – these communications were private messages to someone with whom he was communicating. I think the first one was posted 30 minutes prior, and the one about the school was posted prior but closer in time to the act. I believe they all were posted before he got into the truck. I can’t find a timeline for them at the moment, but I’ve read one before and I think the one about the school was sent after he shot his grandmother but before he got into the truck.
Mrrrr. We think too much of “kids” as kids. They are, by genetic and any other innate programming means, highly versatile, capable, and able to deal with threats far more than we often grasp.
Remember, this “safe” environment we have — and, more importantly, expect these days is really not too much over 100-150 years old. Nowhere near enough to remove the natural wiring needed for survival in a place which is generally “Red in Tooth and Claw”.
No, I’m not surprised by this child. I’m much more surprised there are not many more like her.
the girl will be treated as a hero
as will the mother who ignored the police and got her kids out
This may not be a popular opinion, BUT, are we expecting too much of people?
Is there a “CSI effect” where because of what happens in TV shows is not the same as real life. The shows condense activities into one hour while in reality, the tests and other things take days.
We see TV shows where the cops dive into dangerous situations, but that is not what really happens. Real people hesitate to do things. Not every cop is the same as a highly trained, war-hardened vet who will run into the fire. Can you really say that you would run into an active shooter situation if you did not have a loved one in the place? I think it depends on where you are in life – are you young or old, have family or alone, how were you raised?
Would the people who are criticizing the cops for not rushing into the fire also blame the same people if they did rush and cause more problems?
People complained that they could not take actions on their own, but if the officials allowed them to run into the building also be blamed if those people were killed?
People talk about the necessity of chain of command, but they are blaming the cops for trying to have some responsibility. There were 19 cops in the building, would sending in more impact the flow of actions? A lot of other agents came to the area but… did they respect the chain of command and stepped back until called? If they rushed into the action and caused more problems, how would that have been reported? I see a damn if you do and damn if you don’t situation.
Were other actions happening that did not get the press? I’ve read that some officers were working on getting the kids in other classrooms out. So, while some were deciding how to get into the one classroom, others were dealing with the many other classrooms, but they were going out to a different area, so not as visible.
What about the defund the police actions – does one hesitate if they know that they will be blamed, fired, and prosecuted for an action?
The town has only 16,000 people and yet people in the larger cities are comparing what they would do with what a small town could do. The town may not have the resources to be the “perfect” first responder.
Arm-chair critics can spout off a bunch of junk information which does not reflect what is happening on the ground. I prefer to wait for all the information about the situation as well as acknowledging that people are not perfect.
WRT social media items, how can anyone read a post, realize the full impact, decide to contact someone, while realizing that you are betraying a friend, and then expect that there is perfect information transmission to the proper channels. Doing hindsight analysis of some data is not possible.
/rant off…..
That the girl did acts of bravery and resiliency she has a hard life ahead I am afraid. I hope not, but she will be a pawn to the Left if they get a hold on her.
”
This may not be a popular opinion, BUT, are we expecting too much of people?”
when the shiite hits the fan some guys run and some guys stay. Maybe its genetic that some are brave and some are cowards, but we saw American bravery in Iwo Jima and 9-11.
there are plenty of brave men and women out there who belong in the police and there is no place for donut eating cowards.
If you can’t handle the heat get the hell out of the kitchen.
BTW, before accusing me as a hypocrite, im a physician that put off my retirement for 15 months to care for almost exclusively covid patients, and my better half came out of retirement to administer the vaccine
According to what I read somewhere, several boys hid out under a table which had a tablecloth over it, down to the floor, so the shooter didn’t see them. They were able to stay quiet and were not shot.
Richard Aubrey, Charles, and Liz:
I agree with what you have said.
The police are now the designated “Judas goats.” How easy and how obvious are the failings of those in Texas, how wise we all are, and with none of their faults.
Yes, too much of “I would have done this” without really being there. I have read that the door was steel and opened outward. Do not know if true but if so it would be hard for the police to get in. The parents outside that were demanding action and wanted to go in would have been in the way IF there were 19 officers already in the school. Plus they could have been shot themselves, as has been pointed out. The criticism of the police may be justified, but it may not be. Too much commenting without good intel.
Om – I think you might need to refresh on the definition of ‘Judas Goat’.. Did you maybe mean scapegoat?
From where did she get the idea? Movies? Pretend play?
There are a number of real life examples of women playing dead to survive in a TV documentary called “I Survived” originally aired on the Biography channel. Probably a few movies too, though I can’t think of one at the moment. Needless to say, I wouldn’t want my 3rd grader watching any of that stuff, but you know how difficult it is to control the content kids see.
Did the perp target girls?
I don’t really care about Ramos’ sicknesses at this point, but if you watch some of the TV coverage they are throwing a variety of things out there. There were a number of young women who said that Ramos said very inappropriate things to them. My impression is that they meant that he said lewd things, though “inappropriate” was the actual word. Plus we know he had a blow out with his mother and obviously with his grandmother as well. None of that is proof of anything, but it is suggestive.
Aggie:
Scapegoat for sure.
Judas goat – bait to lure in a dangerous predator for the waiting hunter.
Scapegoat is better.
From some of the enraged comments you would think the police were actually responsible for the murders that occurred. Because “we know.”
One thing that really bugs me about this crime is- all of the speculation about the mass killer’s motivations, to do this crime.
If what reports say is true- the mass killer in Uvalde didn’t tell anyone his motivations for this crime.
Please pardon my using captital letters, but, that’s just it:
HE DIDN’T TELL ANYONE WHY HE DID THIS CRIME.
So it’s pointless to say things like-
“he did this because maybe he was unhappy with his friends”, or “he did this because he maybe was unhappy with his family”, because whatever his reasons were to do the crime- that information went with him to his grave.
Maybe days later, someone will find a letter from him, saying why he did this crime, but unless someone does find something like that, we will never know.
Since his reasons to do the crime are unknowable, we can’t say how to prevent him, or someone like him, from doing this crime, by reading or examining his reasons/motivations, because his reasons are now gone forever.
We can possibly find ways to prevent future crimes like this, by doing things like: doing proper background checks on gun sales, helping people with mental illnesses, by people making schools + buildings impregnatable to people who don’t have permission to go into the buildings, and by doing things like that.
But people, any people, can’t tell us, “we will talk to people like this criminal + help them not to develop motivations like his, motivations to do these crimes”, because this information, his motivations, are now gone forever, like he is now gone. This information is gone.
[ p.s.- For what it’s worth, I usually try to end my comments, by trying to neatly make a conclusion, about what I was trying to say- but with a topic like this one, I really can’t think of one.]
Not sure about the effects on the cops down the road.
I thought I posted this here already. It was reported that, after the Ecole Polytechnique massacre, two of the guys killed themselves with some evidence prior of guilt.
And these were not cops with imputed duties, but two of the guys who walked obediently out of the classroom
I’m not sure I would call the lockdown “early.” The shooter was outside shooting for something like 12 minutes before he found an exterior door propped open and came inside. Somehow, the teacher got only an email notice that there was a shooter–no PA announcement?–so that by the time she went to lock the door to the hall, he was right there.
Wendy Laubach:
You are operating with an outdated timeline. Yesterday they gave a new one, which said this:
The girl who made the 911 calls said that the teacher had already gotten the message to lock the door and was at the door to do so when the perp came to the door of the classroom.
That “12-minute” report was earlier and apparently erroneous. He was outside the school for a much shorter time, apparently, and the lockdown order seems to have come fairly early.
Neo asks, “Why are there so many girls among the dead? Did the perp especially target girls?”
These questions reminded me of a school shooting in my home county in Pennsylvania in 2006 in which the perp specifically targeted girls. He entered a one-room Amish school and told the adults and boys to leave before beginning to shoot the girls. “Roberts told the girls he was sorry for what he was about to do, but ‘I’m angry at God and I need to punish some Christian girls to get even with him.'”
According to Roberts’ wife, he was angry at God because their daughter, born in 1997, had died shortly after birth. A basic outline of the Amish school shooting can be found at https://lancasterpa.com/amish/amish-school-shooting/
A more detailed account of the crime and the state police response to it can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Nickel_Mines_School_shooting
Evidently Roberts had told his wife that he had molested two young female relatives when he was 12 years old, and was fantasizing about molesting girls again.
The response of the Amish themselves to the crime attracted considerable media attention because of their immediate expressions of forgiveness to the Roberts family and to Roberts himself.
Liz:
You ask “Would the people who are criticizing the cops for not rushing into the fire also blame the same people if they did rush and cause more problems?”
My answer is: absolutely.
You also ask “People complained that they could not take actions on their own, but if the officials allowed them to run into the building also be blamed if those people were killed?”
My answer: yes.
Wendy Laubach:
The announcement was that there was a shooter already in the building. If the lockdown had been announced over a PA system, it would have alerted the shooter and he might have taken the opportunity to race suddenly into a classroom before it could lock down. Informing the teachers by cellphone (either through an email or a text) would have set off their notification signals and yet the perp wouldn’t have heard it or even if he heard it he wouldn’t known what it meant. That is my guess, anyway, as to why they may have done it that way instead of through the PA system – if in fact that information is accurate and it’s the way the teachers were informed.
I forgot to include in my above comment, that-
the speculation about this event that bothers me, is- the speculation by several famous people who are: reporters, members of congress, performers, and other famous people.
TR:
We may never know much if anything about his motives. But people will nevertheless speculate based on his life and also what he told his friends and acquaintances. I personally feel he was a psychopath, and they don’t need much reason.
The Columbine killers left journals. Eric Harris in particular seems to have been a psychopath, and he wrote at length about his hatred of humanity in general. I wrote quite a bit about that in this post, which gives a little insight into the mind of a homicidal psychopath.
In the end I think these things usually remain a mystery.
In addition, people who say he should have gotten treatment don’t understand that treating people like that is extremely difficult and doesn’t usually work.
Wendy Laubach:
Here’s another timeline you might want to look at. There was nothing like twelve minutes; it all happened very very quickly.
Of course, that could be revised again. But it’s based on the latest information at the moment.
I commented on the varying timeline in the previous thread.
I find it very disturbing that the governor is now saying the Uvalde police lied to him about what happened and when. He’s not saying there was confusion, or that someone misspoke.
He’s saying they lied. That is an extraordinary statement from a politician about law enforcement.
Gordon Scott:
Abbott is up for re-election. He supported the police action in this and now he thinks they made him look foolish. He’s angry at them for that, and for the whole thing, and he’s saying they lied to him.
But maybe they told him what they thought was true at the time, and they were wrong. How does he know they lied? You have to know you’re telling a falsehood in order to actually lie. But I can understand why he’s angry at them.
I’m taking it all with a grain of salt. Emotions are very very high and people are very angry.
neo:
Thanks for the link.
It’s great to talk to you about this + other topics. 🙂
Gov Abbott made a statement that on the day the shooting occurred he asked the law officers what happened and took notes about the event as they told him in detail what had transpired, then Abbott walked out and told the press the information he had been given which turned out to be incorrect. Of course he is mad.
School doors and most all public buildings always open out, lots of code on that because of this event in 1924 in the county where I attended school growing up. My fourth grade teacher Katie McNutt in the 1950’s was one of the children who did make it out, 36 died and 29 were injured.
”’On Christmas Eve 1924, the teacher, Mrs. Florence Terry Hill, greeted her pupils and parents as they arrived at the schoolhouse for the Christmas program. The school looked good. It was freshly painted (with paint incorporating turpentine thinner). New steel grates had been installed over the windows to prevent any more breakage as had occurred in the recent windstorm. The tree was trimmed with red and green tallow candles, giving a warmth to the room that contrasted with the cold night and light snow outdoors.”’
The school was that of Babbs Switch, Okla., on the southwestern plains located in Kiowa County.
The evening went as planned until Santa Claus, “Dowell Bolding”, reached for a small gift on the tree, bent a branch, and inadvertently set the tree ablaze. People nearby tipped the tree over and tried to smother the flames, but only succeeded in spreading them. There was a panic. People piled up at the rear door, trampling one another. They tried to escape via the windows, but couldn’t get the new gratings loose. A reporter wrote, “Spectators who witnessed the tragedy said entire families died wrapped in each others arms.”‘
That was in a small rural country school house and was one of those events that should not have happened yet, it did, one mistake after another starting with a small candle in 1924.
As for the event in Uvalde it is obvious that the ‘Peter Principle’ once more kicked in. ”’The Peter Principle is an observation that the tendency in most organizational hierarchies, such as that of a corporation, is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence.”’
At this time I am waiting until the dust settles to find out who made the decision to stand down and wait, my heart hurts for those children and teachers.
There has been an anti-police attitude brewing since Zimmerman shot Trayvon, even though Z was not the police. They tried to make him one. Michael Brown’s unsuccessful attack on Officer Wilson in Ferguson amped it up. It has come full bloom with the lies of the “1000 un-armed black men shot each year” by police.
The result is that police officers have begun shying away from actions that can bring on their being sacrificed socially and economically by cowardly administrators. The rising crime rates in general are evidence of this. Also showing this is a tendency to hire those who are less inclined to take immediate action. Wait and see, “time is on our side” have been taught for decades. The call by the school COP in the instant case is not surprising.
Liz’s “rant” above has lots of truth in it. Especially the “TV trained” public.
My take on the differential Ramos diagnosis is psychopath v. undifferentiated schizophrenia. Psychopaths are born, not made. No one knows what causes schizophrenia but it can begin when young- I’ve seen it in a six year-old whose mama was schizophrenic. And the Ramos household was full of bizarre individuals, the possible equal of a nutty mama.
“then Abbott walked out and told the press the information he had been given which turned out to be incorrect. Of course he is mad.”
Care to rephrase that statement?
Avi: yes Abbott is wheelchair-confined. So he did not “walk out”. He remains a good man with a good heart.
Avi:
Does “went out” instead of “walked out,” work for you?
Cheers.
If the lockdown had been announced over a PA system, it would have alerted the shooter and he might have taken the opportunity to race suddenly into a classroom before it could lock down. Informing the teachers by cellphone (either through an email or a text) would have set off their notification signals and yet the perp wouldn’t have heard it or even if he heard it he wouldn’t known what it mean
Just my 5 cents worth, but this seems to imply that teachers would immediately check their devices when a message arrived, which I doubt. Anyway, I presume (hope) there was a protocol in place for this situation.
Wesson:
It was just a possibility. We don’t even know whether it wasn’t announced on the PA system, and certainly my idea of an alternate notification system isn’t necessarily what they had in place. It’s another piece of missing information so far.
Abbott rolled out, totally mis-phrased how he traveled from the briefing to give the report, as I tell my wife from time to time thank you for the correction.
neo:
Yes, I agree. Also was thinking that whatever their protocol is, it should be kept confidential, to help thwart the next monster who thinks shooting up a school is a good idea.
neo: That timeline does make the door-locking behavior make more sense.
The University of Pennsylvania elected some years ago to hire and grant tenure to a sack of sh!t labeled ‘Anthea Butler’. The sack offers words of wisdom here:
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/05/29/i-mean-because-its-texas-penn-professor-alleges-police-may-have-delayed-rescue-in-uvalde-due-to-racism/
Where did the shooter get the money to buy 2 AR-15s and a Car?
I have not read an answer and the MSM is not asking this question.
Thoughts on the ‘propped door’. Was this a common occurrence? In which case, the shooter might have known, and expected easy access to the school.
More thoughts on this topic:
I might have left out a point, about why I don’t like- Pres. Biden, government people, + others, [speculating] about this crime.
My point is, Biden + others are pointing to this crime, + saying things like- [ THERE! you see? There are too many guns on the street…so this crime happened, so we need MANY more gun laws, too keep this kind of crime from happening again! ],
and
[ You see? Because large magazines, aka magazines that hold 10 bullets or more can be bought by civilian people, + people can buy full-sized-Beretta-pistols…and semiautomatic guns that look like [Uzis, ak47 rifles, M16 rifles, + M4 rifles, + etc.], this crime happened!
…So we need many more gun laws + gun bans to keep this type of crime from happening again!]
I think- this sort of thinking is after-the-fact speculation, and to me, in this crime,is wrong.
There’s no way of knowing things like: “IF these kinds of guns weren’t for sale, then this crime wouldnt have happened”.
No one can know that. It’s in the past.
This guy seemed determined to attack lots of people. If M16-looking rifles weren’t there for him to buy, would he have then found some other weapons to attack people with? Maybe he would have looked at knives, or clubs to use as weapons?
There’s no way for me or anyone to find that out- I can’t go back in the past, + change what happened.
If [all] the schools in Texas had 4, big, armed, + intimidating-looking guards, outside all 4 walls of those schools, would the criminal in Uvalde have decided NOT to attack a school?
There’s no way for me or anyone, to know if that would’ve changed what happened- this is in the past, and since the criminal is now deceased, we have know way of asking him what would have stopped him from doing this crime, or not.
This after-the-fact-speculation, I believe, is being done by Biden + others, before, [my words], a full investigation of this crime, + the criminal, + [any other people who might have been involved], has been done, + I think this is wrong.
Biden has said, [maybe on the day that this crime happened], a statement like- “NOW will people stand up to the gun lobby?…and pass assault rifles bans, + stop this type of “mass shooting” from happening again?”
There’s no way he can know that. There’s no way he can know- “if these kinds of rifles + guns weren’t available in the US, then this crime wouldn’t have happened”.
Biden also said, paraphrased: “This 18 year old went + bought “weapons of war”, (by that he means AR-15, semiauto. rifles), and that made this crime happen.”
He doesn’t know that, + he can’t know that.
If he couldn’t buy guns, would he have looked for axes + knives to do a crime?
Could the criminal have found another way to do this crime?
If AR-15s, aka M16-looking rifles, weren’t there for him to buy, could he have killed 21 people, with a bag full of revolvers?
Or if guns weren’t available, would he have found another way?
I think Biden, + other anti-guns people in Congress, are jumping onto this crime, to 1] try to ban more guns + gun magazines/parts, and to 2] make themselves look like “heroes who are trying to ban those terrible, assault rifle-looking guns”, in the USA.
Could anything have convinced, or prevented, this criminal, from doing this crime?
I can’t know that, and neither could anyone else.
We can’t know what can never be discovered, and we can’t go back and change the past.
[Post script- what can keep or discourage from doing violent crimes, or other crimes? I think varies from person to person.
In high school, I had a teacher who looked like a thin, Bob Ross. [Bob Ross was a painter.] I’ll call him Mr. Jones.
My teacher was a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, + told us so.
He also told us [not] to physically fight him, because, quote- he “didn’t know how to do Karate, he only knew the physical fighting that the Marines taught him, which was how “to break people’s bones”, + “how to permanently convince you to never attack him again.”
My words- one day, some tall, tough, high-on-hormones, teenage boy decided to argue with Mr. Jones, and then GRABBED HIS ARMS to fight him, [a bad idea], + Mr. Jones just struggled with this standing kid for a little while, + then knocked the kid out, by slamming him against the nearby wall.
Mr. Jones then called the police, + the police then took this kid out of the school, + sorted him out.
I wasn’t in the classroom when this happened, + I’m not a violent man/guy, but this event of- this “tough guy” deciding to grab + fight Mr. Jones, and then Mr. Jones ending the fight + KO-ing the kid, without much effort, convinced me + others, PERMANENTLY, not to physically fight with Mr. Jones. ]
(Just a note about the comments box- I tried to edit my comment before posting it.
The box wouldn’t let me do that, + my trying that made letter dissapear, + my letters were being printed in the wrong order. I guess you can only edit a comment, after you have posted it. Whichever. )
It is painfully clear to me the Democratic Party is the equivalent of the Stalinist communist party. It will use this event to try to achieve one-party control and squelch the public. They did this with COVID and the ineffective but government-purchased and mandated vaccines, a lockdown as if we were ruled by the Chinese al la Xi, with adverse effects that will be felt and gradually manifested over a generation, during which time we will be further turned into sheep.
My 18 year-old granddaughter in MA ended up with a one-month psychiatric hospitalization for “anxiety” after two years of masks, even at home, “virtual” education, and terrible social isolation because she has a grandmother in the home. She has been transformed from a bright, able student into a delicate creature that cannot tolerate any challenge. She has been ruined, as have millions of others.
Now we have Slimey Joe’s declaration that in a decade we must ALL drive EVs; he will order that, the legislative process be damned.
Ronbert.:
I don’t know about the MSM, but plenty of people on the right have asked and answered that question. He worked at Wendy’s for quite some time after quitting school and apparently had no other expenses. It would have been easy for him to save the money.
Plus, the higher-priced rifle may have been sold on an installment plan, which the manufacturer offers. The shooter may have figured he’d never have to make the payments.