Update 9:21am CT, July 14: According to former Texas politician Joe Moody, the police officer shown in the video is Ruben Ruiz, whose wife was killed in the massacre.
“I’d not planned to speak publicly until the report was released, but I couldn’t say nothing seeing this man, who’s lost everything, maligned as if he was indifferent or actively malicious. Context matters,” Moody wrote in response to criticism Ruiz faced on Twitter over his lockscreen.
At a state Senate hearing over the police response to the shooting, it was revealed that Ruiz’s was aware his wife was in the room, and that he was detained by other officers, prevented from attempting to go in after his wife. Police at the scene also reportedly took his gun away.
The original piece appears below.
Analysis
Yesterday, the Austin American-Statesman published previously unseen footage of the Uvalde Police Department’s response to the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers.
The police department had already been under intense scrutiny for their multiple failures in their response to the massacre, as officers did not attempt to enter the classroom where the gunman was in for over an hour.
In the video, officers can be seen milling about, using their phones, and in one instance, getting some hand sanitizer.
The lack of urgency from the officers was seen as a perfect microcosm of the criticism of American policing that’s grown more vocal over the past couple of years, as many have called out cops who do nothing to protect their citizens, quick to pull a weapon on someone without a gun but terrified of real danger.
And one image from the video perfectly sums up that argument to people online. In it, a Uvalde cop is seen looking on his phone, which shows an image that appears to be the logo of the Marvel character the Punisher.
“That cop in Uvalde having his lock screen be the punisher logo and him being scared to take on an active shooter is truly the perfect encapsulation of how cops see themselves vs who they really are,” wrote one user on Twitter.
Police officers across the country adopted the Punisher logo as a de facto symbol, despite the fact that the Punisher is known for vindictive justice as opposed to equanimity and protecting and serving the community. That someone would identify with a vigilante antihero while also working for the state is problematic enough, but the character itself is at least fearless.
Although the officer in the video only checks his phone momentarily, a cop having that logo on his phone while being part of a force that did nothing while a gunman slaughtered children, was too apt a metaphor for many online.
In response to the release of the video, the Uvalde mayor and a member of the city council criticized journalists for sharing it before parents of victims were able to watch it, calling it a “chicken shit” move.
The irony of that statement was not lost on the people at the hearing, who replied “what about the cops?”
The Uvalde CISD did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Dot.