Police officer checking his phone in the Uvalde shooting video was the husband of teacher killed inside

• The police officer checking his phone during the Uvalde School shooting was the husband of one of the murdered teachers.
• The officer was shown in recently released security footage.
• Apparently, his wife had texted him that she was gravely injured.

A desperate moment. The police officer caught on video looking at his phone while the gunman was inside a classroom was the husband of one of the two teachers killed in the tragic shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

New video of law enforcement’s slow response to the mass shooting at has sparked community anger. The camera also captured a moment of agony for a police officer whose wife was killed in the attack, according to ABC News on Thursday July 14.

Police officer checking his phone during Uvalde school shooting was the husband of a murdered teacher

The images from a security camera, released this week on television and online by local station KVUE and the Austin American-Statesman, captured the moment when Officer Rubén Ruiz, a member of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police, checked his cell phone after his wife, teacher Eva Mireles, texted him to tell him that she had been shot and that she was dying, authorities revealed.

Texas State Representative Joe Moody publicly identified Ruben Ruiz as the officer who was looking at his cell phone in the new video, after the officer was criticized by some on social media as an example of law enforcement’s slow response on May 24, which Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, has described as an «abject failure.»

The officer checking his cell phone has been “defamed”

Moody took to Twitter on Wednesday to inform the public that Ruben Ruiz was the husband of Mireles, one of two teachers killed along with 19 children at the Uvalde school. That representative is part of a joint committee of the Texas Legislature that has spent weeks investigating the mass shooting and is scheduled to meet Sunday with loved ones of those killed and release a report with its findings, ABC News reported.

“I’d not planned to speak publicly until the report was released, but I couldn’t say nothing seeing this man, who has lost everything, maligned as if he was indifferent or actively malicious. Context matters,” Rep. Moody also tweeted.

He was prevented from trying to save his wife

Ruben Ruiz was one of the first four officers to enter the school three minutes after shooter Salvador Ramos, wielding an AR-15-style rifle, stormed through an unlocked door unhindered. Testifying before a Texas State Senate committee on June 21, McCraw said Ruben Ruiz tried to save his wife but was prevented from doing so.

«We’ve got an officer, Officer Ruiz, whose wife called in and said she’d been shot and she was dying,» McCraw told the state Senate committee. “What happened to him was he tried to move forward in the hallway. He was detained, and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene.”

The response came too late to stop the slaughter

One of the children in Mireles’ class called 911 during the attack, pleading with an operator: «Send help for my teacher, she was shot, but she’s still alive.» Police ended up entering the classroom and killing the gunman 77 minutes after he entered the school, but they were too late to save Mireles and the other victims, authorities said.

Mireles was a fourth-grade teacher at the elementary school, her relatives told ABC News. She had been a teacher in the school district for about 17 years, the family added. Amber Ybarra, a cousin of Ruben Ruiz, called Mireles a «hero» and an «incredible mother.»