- Arnulfo Reyes spent a month recovering after being wounded in the shooting at Robb Elementary.
- He hasn't talked to his cousin, Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, since being shot.
- Arredondo has faced public scrutiny from the community and victims' families for his response.
A teacher at Robb Elementary who was injured in the mass shooting says he hasn't spoken to his cousin, Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, since the shooting.
On May 24, a gunman killed 19 students and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Texas. Eleven of those students were in Arnulfo Reyes' 4th grade classroom. During the tragedy, Reyes was first shot in the arm. He played dead for an hour until the gunman shot him again in the back.
Speaking with NPR, Reyes said his classroom's doorknob had been broken for at least two years. He said he can't understand why his cousin claimed to have been searching for keys when Reyes' door was unlocked.
"I wish that he would have said, 'I'm going to go in there because that's my family.' But he didn't," Reyes said.
Arredondo has faced public scrutiny from the community and victims' families for his department's slow response to the mass shooting. Earlier this month he resigned from his city council position and is on administrative leave.
According to NPR, Reyes isn't sure if he'll return to teaching after working at the elementary school for seven years. He said the loss of his students haunts him, but that the support from his community is helping him cope.
"I'm here. And a lot of it that's getting me forward in all of this is the love that I'm getting from my community, the love that I get from my family and the thought that I want to make things happen for my students," Reyes said, "that they wouldn't die in vain."
