Border Patrol Agents Are Now Both Heroes and Villains in the Texas Shooting

In the chaotic hours after an 18-year-old gunman went on a rampage at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 young children and two teachers, a narrative emerged about a heroic Border Patrol agent who stopped the massacre before it got any worse.

The agent, initial reports said, was off-duty and hurried to the scene of the shooting, then charged in without waiting for backup and single-handedly took out the gunman, who’d barricaded himself inside a classroom. The purported act of selflessness and courage was a balm for an otherwise unthinkable tragedy—at least one cop did his job and saved lives.

But that’s not what really happened.

It’s now clear that crucial minutes ticked by—around an hour—as police stood outside Robb Elementary while the gunman, Salvador Ramos, went on a killing spree inside a fourth-grade classroom. Dozens of Border Patrol agents did respond to support local officers, but it was a four-man team of tactical agents who went in together. And while their actions were undoubtedly heroic, one witness, a 10-year-old boy, has come forward to say the cops inadvertently helped the gunman identify another victim to shoot.