Tactical team, not off-duty agent, killed Uvalde gunman
CLAIM: The man who killed the gunman at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, was an off-duty Border Patrol agent who had a child and spouse inside the school.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. A U.S. Border Patrol tactical team shot and killed the gunman, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. While an off-duty agent said he rushed to the scene with a borrowed shotgun, he clarified in televised interviews that he didn’t kill the gunman or go inside the classroom where the shooting took place.
THE FACTS: Numerous false claims have spread online since an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers inside Robb Elementary School last week, including some social media posts in recent days that misidentified who ultimately stopped the shooter.
“In case anyone missed it the man that killed the school shooter in Texas wasn’t even an on duty officer,” one widely shared Facebook post read. “It was a parent and spouse of a 4th grade teacher, he just happened to be a border patrol agent.”
The post went on to describe that the off-duty officer was getting a haircut when he heard about the shooting, borrowed his barber’s shotgun, rushed to the scene, “evacuated his wife and daughter and went back in and shot the suspect.”
Much of that story matches the real account of Jacob Albarado, a Border Patrol agent in Uvalde who has said he rushed to the school with a shotgun borrowed from his barber and helped evacuate kids. It’s true that Albarado’s wife was a fourth-grade teacher at the school and his daughter was a second-grader at the school. But Albarado did not say he went inside the classroom where the shooting took place, nor did he say he killed the gunman.
In fact, Albarado contradicted these false claims in televised interviews.
“I didn’t have any of my gear, I was off duty, so, I didn’t go in,” Albarado told NBC’s “Today Show” in a Tuesday interview where he also described how police broke windows to help children evacuate the school.
In a Wednesday interview with CBS, Albarado further confirmed he didn’t kill the gunman, saying, “I didn’t shoot the guy. I wasn’t in the room with him shooting the guy. I never said I shot him. So I would like to clarify that as well.”
State police have consistently said a Border Patrol tactical team breached the classroom and killed the gunman.They have not named the officer who shot him.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.