Uvalde school aide ‘suffering’ after being wrongly blamed for propping open door
New video has emerged that offers proof that an aide did not prop open a door that allowed the mass shooter to enter Robb Elementary School in Uvalde — a since-retracted accusation that she says scarred her mentally and emotionally.
School aide Emilia “Amy” Marin was helping a co-worker bring in food for a party when 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos arrived at the Texas school, where he slaughtered 19 students and two teachers on May 24.
Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, first said Ramos barged in through a door left ajar by Marin — but the department later clarified that he got in via an unlocked door.
“He said a teacher left the door propped open,” Marin told ABC News correspondent John Quiñones in her first interview since the massacre. “And I looked at my daughter and I said, ‘That’s a lie.’”
DPS officials said the door had been shut by the “teacher” but didn’t lock automatically as it was supposed to.
Video from the school obtained by the network shows that Marin did what she was supposed to do.
She said the footage shows her running to call 911 when she saw the gunman crash his car into a ditch, thinking the driver was having a medical emergency.
Marin is then seen kicking away a rock that had been keeping the door open when she realizes the man is shooting.
“I am suffering mentally, of course, emotionally,” Marin said about being initially accused of allowing the gunman to enter.
“I died that day,” she said in the interview, which aired Monday on “Good Morning America.”
“I am suffering from post-traumatic arthritis, which is very painful. There are nights when everybody goes to bed and I just stay awake with the pain and my daughter tells me … ‘Mom, soak in the tub.’ And I tell her I can’t because I can’t get out,” Marin said.
“Right now, I’m lost. Sometimes I go into a dark place. And it’s hard when I’m there, but I tell myself, ‘You can’t let him win. You can’t let him win,'” she said, referring to Ramos. “I’m a fighter. I will be OK. I’m going to learn to live with this.”
Marin said she has not been able to go back to work since the massacre.
“I sit there at night, replaying that day in my mind,” she said. “And I see those victims’ faces. I pray for them every night, but what I go through, McCraw doesn’t know. Nobody knows.
“But it was very easy for him to point the finger at me. A few weeks ago, I told my counselor, ‘It would have been better if he would have shot me, too.’ Because the pain is unbearable,” she continued.
“And when you have people who are higher up in ranks like McCraw, you would think that they know their job well. He has no idea what his words did,” Marin added.
DPS spokesman Travis Considine told ABC News in a statement: “At the outset of the investigation, DPS reported that an unnamed teacher at Robb Elementary School used a rock to prop open the door that the shooter used to enter the school building.
“It was later determined that the same teacher removed the rock from the doorway prior to the arrival of the shooter, and closed the door, unaware that the door was unlocked,” he said.
Considine added that “DPS corrected this error in public announcements and testimony and apologizes to the teacher and her family for the additional grief this has caused to an already horrific situation.”
Marin also said she had asked to speak with Uvalde schools Superintendent Hal Harrell, but was told the schools chief would not come to see her in the hospital.
“He could have defended me. He knew who ‘the teacher’ was and chose not to,” she told Quiñones. “It makes no sense when you have dedicated your life to working for the district.”
A spokeswoman for Harrell, who has announced he would be stepping down next week, did not respond to a request for comment, ABC News reported.
Meanwhile, Marin has filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the gun used in the shooting and said she is considering other legal actions.
Her interview comes as a Texas state trooper who was one of the first to respond to the shooting was fired by the DPS.
Sgt. Juan Maldonado, a public information officer, was one of seven Texas troopers who were investigated by the DPS inspector general for their inaction during the massacre, the agency has confirmed to The Post.
In September, DPS announced that five of its officers who responded to the shooting had been referred to the inspector general. The number was later increased to seven officers.
Despite the massive response, it took over 70 minutes for police to breach the classroom and take out the gunman.
