Uvalde Principal On Leave Breaks Silence About School Safety Findings

Robb Elementary School Principal Mandy Gutierrez was put on administrative paid leave earlier this week. It was revealed that a Texas House committee investigating the May 24 attack found a few safety concerns within the school that might have led to Uvalde CISD Superintendent Hal Harrell's decision to put her on leave.

Now, Gutierrez is speaking out about the findings.

The House committee found that Gutierrez, among others, were aware of a broken lock on Room 111 — the classroom the gunman entered and killed most of his victims, according to the Texas Tribune. Arnulfo Reyes, a teacher in Room 111 who was shot and wounded in the attack, reported the broken lock to school officials, but a work order was never prepared. Reyes later clarified his claims, saying he didn't report the door being locked, but the door would get stuck or jammed during the school day.

In an interview with CNN, the first-year principal was asked whether she agreed with the report. "Absolutely not," she said.

She added that she "knew for a fact" that the door to Room 111 "did in fact lock." "And the reason I know that is we conduct regular walk throughs of the campus and I have myself used my master key to unlock that door," Gutierrez said.

Furthermore, the report found that Gutierrez never tried to use the intercom system at Robb Elementary School to warn teachers there was a gunman inside the building. The principal said she used an app, Raptor, to try to initiate the lockdown, "but she had difficulty making the alert because of a bad WiFi signal," the report said. Reyes said he never got the alert from the app.

"Anytime that an alert went out, every single teacher on that campus took it to mean it could be a potential escalating situation," Gutierrez told CNN. "I feel that I followed the training that I was provided with to the best of my abilities. And I will second-guess myself for the rest of my life."

Gutierrez also touched on law enforcement's response at Robb Elementary School that day, which has been at the center of criticism from the community and the state.

"I'm not law enforcement and I cannot pass judgment and tell them how to do their jobs, just like I would not ask them to tell me how to do mine. I don't feel that I'm in a position to blame anyone," she said. "I would blame things that are out of my circle of control, which is I don't get to make the laws. So I don't get to, I don't get to decide how old you have to be to purchase a firearm. I don't get to decide how many rounds of ammunition somebody can purchase. I don't get to determine the amount of security that we have available on campus."