Lindsay (00:00):
Now to Uvalde, Texas and an ABC News exclusive. Shortly after the massacre, authorities blamed a school employee for leaving a door open at Robb Elementary, allowing the shooter to get inside. A school staffer is now speaking out and trying to set the record straight. ABC’s John Quinones is in Uvalde.
John Quinones (00:16):
Tonight, nearly five months after the massacre at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School, the staffer at the center of the controversy over the door where the gunman entered speaking exclusively to ABC News.
Emila Marin (00:30):
I am suffering mentally, of course, emotionally. I still don’t sleep.
John Quinones (00:37):
Amy Marin, an after school program coordinator had only been working at Robb Elementary for a month, but the trauma of that day has endured. Her words now come out stuttered, and she suffers a tremor. On that day in May, she says she saw the gunman’s vehicle crash outside and watched as he jumped the fence with a rifle, hearing him firing shots. She says she kicked a rock out from under the school’s outer door, which she had used earlier to prop it open. She then slammed the door shut behind her while placing one of the first calls to 9-1-1.
Emila Marin (01:11):
I did not see him! The kids are running!
John Quinones (01:17):
But just days after the attack, here’s what Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw said about her actions.
Speaker 5Steve McCraw (01:24):
The exterior door where we knew the shooter entered was propped open by a teacher.
John Quinones (01:30):
Texas DPS later acknowledging that she did pull the door shut after all, but it didn’t lock as it was supposed to.
Speaker 6 (01:38):
You think they’re intentionally trying to make you the scapegoat?
Emila Marin (01:41):
Yes. Yes. That’s exactly what they were trying to do.
Speaker 6 (01:46):
What do you want to tell the director of the DPS today, McCraw?
Emila Marin (01:51):
Your job was to sit there and watch that video and see what happened from beginning to end, and you chose not to watch the whole video. You chose to blame me.
Speaker 6 (02:07):
Is there any way they can make up for that?
Emila Marin (02:10):
No, sir.
John Quinones (02:13):
And Lindsay, tonight, the Department of Public Safety issuing a statement saying It apologized to Amy Marin and her family for the additional grief this has caused an already horrific situation. For her part, Amy Marin says she just wants the world to know she did everything she could here at Robb Elementary to save those children. Lindsay?
George Stephanopoulos (02:36):
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