A lawyer for the unnamed teacher accused by law enforcement officials and Senator Ted Cruz (R-Quintana Roo) of facilitating the murder of 19 students and two teachers by propping a back door to the school open said the teacher intentionally closed the door when she realized there was a gunman on the loose, the San Antonio Express-News reports.
The statement further clouds the issue of the reliability of the accounts given by the school police, the local police, state officials and Cruz, who has lambasted the teachers he thinks should have more responsibility for defending students from gunmen than police or government officials.
On Friday, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw told the media that a teacher had intentionally propped the door open; that claim appears in doubt now.
Attorney Don Flanary, the lawyer for the teacher who is not being named out of concern for her safety, said his client had propped the door open with a rock while she got some air and saw the black SUV the shooter was driving wrecked in a ditch. Upon seeing the wreck, she called 9-1-1.
The shooter then fired a number of rounds at workers at a nearby funeral home before making his way into the school. The funeral home workers yelled, “He has a gun!” which prompted the teacher to return into the school building and shutting the door behind her.
“She saw the wreck,” Flanary said. “She ran back inside to get her phone to report the accident. She came back out while on the phone with 911. The men at the funeral home yelled, ‘He has a gun!’ She saw him jump the fence, and he had a gun so she ran back inside. She kicked the rock away when she went back in. She remembers pulling the door closed while telling 911 that he was shooting. She thought the door would lock because that door is always supposed to be locked.”