Federal agents ignored orders from local police and went after the shooter who killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, according to reports Friday.
Border Patrol agents took matters into their own hands after waiting roughly 30 minutes to lead a "stack" formation of officers inside Robb Elementary School, federal law enforcement officials told NBC News.
A member of BORTAC, or the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, has been credited with fatally shooting the gunman, identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, who had barricaded himself in a classroom.
An off-duty BORTAC agent was the first to arrive. The agent “basically said let’s get this done" and began planning a way into the room, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told the Washington Post. More BORTAC agents arrived around 15 minutes later, and within minutes of getting a key to unlock the door, a variety of law enforcement officers followed a leading BORTAC agent holding a ballistic shield provided by a U.S. marshal.
The same source said the shooter was hiding in a closet at the time and burst out firing at the officials, who returned fire and killed Ramos. One BORTAC agent received minor injuries after his head was grazed by a bullet and his foot struck by shrapnel. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Photo: Allison Dinner/AFP/Getty Images |
Three officers who confronted Salvador Ramos belong to Bortac, a highly trained squad who are among a contingent of border agents who work in Uvalde
The Border Patrol agent who killed the mass shooter at an elementary school here Tuesday belonged to a small, elite team that has a presence in this town and responded to calls about the incident on local police radio.
The agent and two colleagues who confronted the shooter belong to the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, known as Bortac. Its roughly 240 agents are among the most highly trained in federal law enforcement. They do some of the Border Patrol’s most risky work, including storming suspected migrant stash houses and tracking human-smuggling networks.
They were among about 80 Border Patrol agents who ultimately responded to the massacre in which 19 students and two teachers died, according to an agency official. Many of them live and work in Uvalde, located about an hour from Mexico, where the local Border Patrol station is staffed by approximately 150 agents.
“Uvalde is their home, these are their neighbors, they had kids that went to that school,” said Jason Owens, the top Border Patrol agent in the agency’s Del Rio Sector, which includes Uvalde. “We had agents that were responding to this incident, knowing their child was unaccounted for in this incident. We have agents whose families were impacted by this event.”
Mr. Owens didn’t say how many relatives of Border Patrol agents were killed or wounded in Tuesday’s attack that left 19 children and two adults dead.
Bortac agents typically carry their gear, such as helmets, tactical vests and shields, in their cars and were able to quickly ready themselves to help breach the school building, officials said Wednesday.
Several of them helped make a plan with other responding officers to breach the building and later the classroom, according to federal authorities. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to related stories:
Border Patrol Tactical Unit Has at Times Played High-Profile Role
Border Patrol Agents Killed the Uvalde School Shooter. But Why Were They on the Scene?
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