A Uvalde mother who was handcuffed when she tried to run away from police outside Robb Elementary School, but was eventually released and saved her children, is now being harassed by police after speaking out about the ordeal, her lawyer said this week .
Angeli Rose Gomez, a resident of Uvalde, was working on a farm about half an hour away when she started… calling about the shooting and hurried to the school.
Her lawyer, Mark Di Carlo, called the scene “the most horrific scenario imaginable” when she arrived.
“We had these [$50,000] up to $100,000 around this school, taxpayer items – taxpayer shields and body armor and sniper rifles – none of those were used to enter the school, but in fact the SUVs were used, for example, to keep people from going in save their own children,” Di Carlo told Fox News Digital on Monday.
Gomez was handcuffed by a Texas Department of Public Safety Officer or US Marshal as she tried to get past the police line† A Uvalde Police Officer who knew Gomez intervened and helped her out.
“As soon as they uncuff me, I see his arm, like, give me a small gate, because I’m really small. So a small gate where I can just run,” Gomez told WOAI this week.
Gomez first found the classroom her oldest son was in and told them to evacuate, then found her youngest son and helped him out of the school too.
She has since shared her story, first with CBS News in early June and this week with local media, sparking a backlash from law enforcement, her attorney says.
Gomez was arrested this month and was told that police had received a report that… illegal immigrants in her car, which was not true.
“We think that was a pretext to harass her,” said Di Carlo.
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Recently, Gomez was walking with her grandmother when they saw a Uvalde Police officer sitting in a car with the lights on, about half a block from their home.
Gomez, who is on probation for a domestic incident, was also threatened with a probation violation on the day of the shooting.
State police down to the local level have been harshly criticized for their response to the shooting, which killed 19 children and two adults.
Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety Steven McCraw accused Pete Arredondothe police chief of Uvalde’s school and the incident commander on the scene, in order to “put the lives of officers above the lives of children”.
“Three minutes after the suspect entered the west building, there was a sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate, distract and neutralize the subject,” McCraw told a Texas Senate committee last week.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, meanwhile, accused McCraw of averting blame of state law enforcement.
“There were no fewer than eight law enforcement officers in the hallway leading to the Robb Elementary School doorway,” McLaughlin said at a Uvalde City Council meeting last week. “At each briefing, he leaves behind the number of his own officers and rangers who were on the scene that day.”
Di Carlo, who also represents several other members of the community in Uvalde, said he is considering multiple lawsuits related to Gomez’s ordeal, including possibly a civil rights lawsuit for infringing her freedom of expression or a lawsuit for false imprisonment as as a result of her temporary arrest outside the school.
Uvalde police did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.