A Robb Elementary school teacher is traumatized and heartbroken after Texas officials initially accused her of leaving a door at the school “propped open” allowing a gunman to enter and killed 19 children and two teachers.
“It’s traumatic for her when it’s insinuated that she’s involved, the door open,” her attorney Don Flanary told ABC News. “She’s heartbroken.”
Before the incident, the teacher was helping a coworker bring in food from outside the school for an end-of-year party when she saw a vehicle crash.
She went inside the school to report the crash and left the door propped open with a rock. She was still on the phone with a 911 operator when she went back to the door and heard someone yelled from across the street that the person who crashed the vehicle outside had a gun.
When she saw the gunman, Salvador Ramos, 18, approaching she kicked away the rock and closed the door. She then ran to a nearby adjoining classroom and hid underneath a counter.
Originally, police said the teacher had left the door open, just one of several details that have been corrected by investigators in the week since the tragedy.
The director of Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Steven McCraw said at a press conference after the shooting that a teacher had propped the door open shortly before the gunman entered the school.
Days later they walked back that claim saying investigators had determined that the teacher had closed the door — but the door did not lock.
“We did verify she closed the door. The door did not lock. We know that much and now investigators are looking into why it did not lock,” Travis Considine, chief communications officer for the Texas DPS said.
The entire experience, however, has taken a toll on her mental health, Flanary told CNN. She’s had to see a neurologist because “she can’t stop shaking,” he said.
“She felt alone, like she couldn’t even grieve,” Flanary said. “She second-guessed herself, like ‘did I not do that?'” he added.
Flanary is assisting the teacher with a possible civil lawsuit against Daniel Defense, the makers of the weapon used in the slaughter.
