Arnulfo Reyes: The Uvalde Teacher Who Survived Room 111

Arnulfo Reyes is the Uvalde teacher who was the only person to survive Classroom 111 at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022. All eleven of his fourth-grade students were killed in the attack, and Reyes himself was shot twice, sustaining severe injuries to his left arm and back. Since then he has become one of the most visible survivors of the shooting, pushing publicly for gun safety legislation, criticizing the delayed police response, and testifying in the criminal case against one of the officers who was there that day.¹

What Happened in Classroom 111

Two days before the end of the school year, eighteen-year-old Salvador Ramos entered Robb Elementary through an unlocked back door carrying an AR-15-style rifle. He walked into adjoining fourth-grade classrooms, Rooms 111 and 112, and opened fire. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed, and at least seventeen others were injured, before U.S. Border Patrol agents killed the gunman 77 minutes after he entered the school.²

Reyes had eleven students in his room that morning: Nevaeh Bravo, Jackie Cazares, Jose Flores Jr., Uziyah Garcia, Xavier Lopez, Jayce Luevanos, Annabell Rodriguez, Lexi Rubio, Layla Salazar, Eliahna Torres, and Rojelio Torres. None of them survived.¹ The two teachers in Room 112, Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles, were also killed.²

Testifying at a January 2026 trial, Reyes said he saw a “black shadow with a gun” enter the classroom before a bullet struck his left arm and he fell. He was shot a second time in the back. He told jurors the gunman splashed blood on his face to taunt him, and that he closed his eyes and played dead.³ He also recalled hearing a child in the next room call out to officers for help before more gunfire.⁴

His Injuries and Physical Recovery

The bullet to his arm shattered the bone, which surgeons replaced with a titanium rod. The wound in his back left a hole doctors described as the size of a grapefruit, and skin grafts taken from his back and thigh were used to reconstruct the missing flesh in his arm.¹

By May 2023, one year on, Reyes had undergone eleven surgeries. For the last of them, his medical team let him choose the permanent orientation of his left palm; he picked palm-down so he could text and type more easily.¹ He remained on workers’ compensation through his recovery and has spoken about chronic pain in his arm and back and about not knowing whether he will fully heal.⁵

Living With the Aftermath

Reyes has talked openly about depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. He works with a therapist on regaining what he calls “normalcy” in ordinary tasks like sleeping, showering, and making breakfast. Crowds feel unsafe. He has not returned to Sacred Heart Catholic Church, saying he has “issues with a lot of people in a small space” and that no place feels safe anymore.¹

As the only adult survivor of his classroom, he has described a particular kind of isolation. “I don’t have nobody I can go and bond with,” he said. “I can’t say, ‘How are your stitches? How are you dealing with losing 11 kids?'” He has acknowledged survivor’s guilt and has also spoken about trying to move past anger, saying he has forgiven the shooter, school administrators, elected officials, and even cousins of his who were among the officers on scene during the delayed response.¹

Before the shooting Reyes had taught for seventeen years, six of them at Robb, starting in Pre-K before moving to fourth grade. He also runs a small business called Arnie’s Nursery & Gifts, which he had opened roughly a year before the attack. He closed the shop for a year and a half while he recovered, then reopened it. His mother, sister, and brother have been his primary support. He has said he does not know whether he will teach again.⁶¹

The Classroom Door

The door to Room 111 has been one of the most contested details of the tragedy. A Texas House of Representatives investigation found the door was “ordinarily unsecured and accessible.” It could be locked, but doing so took extra effort because the bolt did not fit the frame properly and the strike plate was damaged.⁷ Reyes had alerted school administrators about the problem more than once, and no work order was ever issued.⁸

The wider problem was school-wide. Classroom doors at Robb could only be locked from the outside, and a shortage of keys, made worse when the manufacturer discontinued the specific lock model, led some staff to rely on magnets and other workarounds against policy. The Texas House report described a “regrettable culture of noncompliance” and concluded that if doors had been locked as policy required, the delay “could have slowed his progress for a few precious minutes.”⁷⁸

At the 2026 trial, defense attorney Nico LaHood suggested Reyes bore partial responsibility for leaving the door unlocked. Reyes testified that he believed the door was locked and repeated that he had reported the malfunctioning latch to the school.⁴

His Advocacy After the Shooting

Reyes began speaking publicly almost immediately. From his hospital room at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, he gave an interview to ABC News on June 6, 2022, calling the officers who waited in the hallway while children were dying “cowards.” He pledged to “go to the end of the world to make sure things get changed.”⁹

He has since partnered with Everytown for Gun Safety and publicly called for a federal ban on assault weapons, which he has described as “weapons of war.” He has also advocated raising the minimum age to purchase firearms and strengthening background checks, while saying he is not opposed to gun ownership in principle. He has been sharply critical of Texas lawmakers, saying they “sit on their hands” on gun safety even after repeated mass shootings in the state.¹⁰⁹

Starting in 2023 he began organizing an annual memorial in Uvalde on the anniversary of the shooting. Participants fly orange flags, the color of gun violence awareness, for 77 minutes, one for each minute the gunman was inside the school. On May 24, 2026, Reyes led the observance at the downtown plaza, saying he does it “for these 21 and their kids — to bring awareness to gun violence.”¹¹¹²

His Break With the School District

Reyes has said Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District abandoned him after the shooting. Then-superintendent Hal Harrell waited a month to contact him, and Reyes refused to speak with him when he did. The next superintendent, Gary Patterson, called only twice, each time for less than five minutes. “They’ve never really given support,” Reyes said. “They just forgot us.”¹³

He chose not to sue the district. He is a plaintiff in a civil claim against the estate of the deceased shooter, the shooter’s family, and companies that made the security and communication equipment used in the school’s response. His attorney, Mark DiCarlo, said Reyes is seeking at least $1 million in damages. His counseling has been paid for through workers’ compensation, not through the school district.¹³⁶

The Officers’ Criminal Cases

Almost 400 officers from local, state, and federal agencies converged on Robb Elementary, and none breached the classrooms for 77 minutes.¹⁴ A January 2024 Department of Justice report found “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training” and concluded officers wrongly treated the scene as a barricaded-suspect situation rather than an active shooter. Attorney General Merrick Garland said lives would have been saved had officers followed standard active-shooter protocols. The DOJ singled out then-Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo for failing to provide “appropriate leadership, command and control,” and said no other agency leader effectively challenged the lack of urgency.¹⁵

On June 27, 2024, a Uvalde County grand jury indicted Arredondo and former CISD officer Adrian Gonzales on felony charges of abandoning or endangering a child.¹⁶

The Adrian Gonzales Trial

Gonzales faced 29 counts, one for each of the 19 children killed and 10 who survived. His trial was moved to Nueces County and held in January 2026.¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹

The defense called two witnesses and argued Gonzales never saw the gunman. Lead attorney Nico LaHood said a conviction would create a “don’t go in” mindset among officers responding to future crises. On January 21, 2026, after roughly seven hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Gonzales on all 29 counts.¹⁹

Pete Arredondo’s Pending Case

Arredondo faces 10 counts of child endangerment, one for each surviving child in the classrooms. As of mid-2026 his trial was tentatively set for February 22, 2027, though the date remained uncertain.²⁰ The case has stalled over a fight to compel testimony from 19 U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees who responded to the shooting. Arredondo’s defense and the Uvalde County district attorney have each filed federal lawsuits seeking that testimony; CBP has resisted, saying the information is available elsewhere and that the requests would expose “confidential law enforcement techniques and procedures.”²¹

Civil Settlements Around the Shooting

In 2024, families of the victims and survivors reached separate $2 million settlements with the city of Uvalde and Uvalde County, both funded through insurance. The city also agreed to enhanced police training, a “fitness for duty” standard for its officers, an annual day of remembrance on May 24, a permanent downtown memorial, and continued funding for mental health services.²²²³

Families also sued the Texas Department of Public Safety and 92 individual DPS officers on scene. On June 26, 2026, the Texas Supreme Court rejected that lawsuit, a major setback.²⁴

The New School and Continuing Remembrance

Robb Elementary was demolished. In October 2025 its replacement, Legacy Elementary, opened on a $60 million budget funded by private donors and the state of Texas. Its central courtyard holds a sculpted steel oak tree with 21 branches, 19 smaller ones for the students and two larger ones for the teachers.²⁵²⁶

Reyes attended the October 10, 2025, ribbon-cutting, calling the day “bittersweet.”²⁵ Four years on, he continues to speak, to advocate, and to organize the anniversary memorial for the eleven students who did not walk out of Room 111 with him.

1
San Antonio Express-News. Uvalde Massacre Survivor
2
Britannica. Uvalde School Shooting
3
KSAT. Testimony to Resume in Second Week of Ex-Uvalde CISD Police Officer’s Child Endangerment Trial
4
Houston Public Media. Uvalde School Shooting Trial Teacher Testifies
5
KSAT. Uvalde Teacher Reflects on Survivor’s Guilt and Healing Two Years After Shooting
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Texas Standard. Uvalde Shooting Teacher Arnulfo Reyes
7
Texas House of Representatives. Robb Elementary Investigative Committee Report
8
Texas Observer. Uvalde Locks Security Missing Keys
9
ABC News. Teacher Survived Uvalde Shooting Slams Police Response
10
Everytown for Gun Safety. The Loss We Feel Is Immeasurable
11
Uvalde Leader-News. Locals Plan Two May 24 Observances
12
Fox San Antonio. Lone Survivor of Robb Elementary Shooting Leads Emotional Remembrance
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NBC News. Uvalde Teacher Survived Mass Shooting Feels Abandoned by School District
14
U.S. Department of Justice. Critical Incident Review of Response to Mass Shooting at Robb Elementary
15
Texas Tribune. Uvalde School Shooting Federal Investigation Police Response
16
Texas Tribune. Uvalde School Shooting Police Chief Arredondo Indictment
17
KSAT. Timeline of Charges Against Former Uvalde CISD Officers
18
Courthouse News Service. Testimony Ends in Uvalde Officer’s Trial
19
KSAT. Closing Arguments in Child Endangerment Trial of Ex-Uvalde CISD Police Officer
20
KSAT. Trial Day Set for Former Uvalde School Police Chief
21
Texas Tribune. CBP Pete Arredondo Lawsuit Uvalde School Shooting Trial
22
CNN. Uvalde School Shooting Settlement
23
Houston Public Media. Uvalde Families Sue Texas DPS, Settle With City and County
24
Texas Tribune. Uvalde Shooting Texas DPS Lawsuit
25
San Antonio Express-News. Legacy Elementary Uvalde School
26
Houston Public Media. Opening of New Uvalde School Marks Bittersweet Day for Families and Town