Border Patrol agent Jacob Albarado dropped everything — literally getting up from the barber’s chair where he had just sat down for a haircut — and raced to Robb Elementary School last Tuesday in the hopes of stopping the 18-year-old gunman who ultimately killed 19 students and two teachers.
During a Tuesday morning interview with Savannah Guthrie for NBC’s “The Today Show,” Albarado revealed the state of the situation when he arrived — “chaos” — and what police were doing as he and others attempted to save as many students and teachers as possible.
Guthrie began the interview by noting that Albarado — whose arm was in a sling when he arrived for the interview — had recently undergone shoulder surgery that was unrelated to the shooting in Uvalde.
Border patrol agent Jacob Albarado, who was off duty at the time, rushed into Robb Elementary School to save his second grade daughter, his wife who is a teacher, and many others from the school shooting. @SavannahGuthrie speaks with the first responder live. pic.twitter.com/YcoV0dzenk
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) May 31, 2022
Albarado then went on to describe the sequence of events as he remembered it.
“I went inside the barber shop, sat down, and then — I can’t recall if he received the text first or if I received it, that there is an active shooter,” he said. “‘There’s an active shooter. Help! I love you’, from my wife.”
Albarado said that his response had been immediate: he had borrowed a shotgun from his barber and headed directly to the school to see what he could do to help.
“What did you see and hear when you arrived?” Guthrie asked.
“Just chaos,” Albarado replied. “Chaos. Everyone was trying to get to the school, people were trying to get everything situated. I was just trying to get toward my wife’s room and my daughter’s room.”
Albarado noted that a number of police officers were already there, and that they immediately recognized him when he arrived. “It’s a small community. My wife works at Robb. Everyone at Robb knows me,” he said. “Pretty much all local law enforcement knows me, or I know the majority of them, so I was able to just go in.”
He said that he spent the first few minutes helping kids who were coming out of the windows of other classrooms and trying to get ahold of his wife — who he eventually learned had already made her way to safety. After that, his focus was solely on finding his daughter — a second grader at Robb — and getting her to safety as well.
“I didn’t know where the shooter was at. I knew he had shot in the building, I didn’t know if he was still there or not,” Albarado continued.
“Did you ever see those officers that were poised outside the door, you know, obviously there’s a lot of scrutiny now with those actions and whether they should have gotten in, did you have any occasion to interact with them at all?” Guthrie asked.
Albarado noted that at one point, he had been ready to go into the room but had held back because he did not have any of his own gear — unlike the local officers who were still waiting in the hallway. “It wouldn’t have been a smart move for me — all those guys had their gear and stuff.”