On May 24, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas, the unthinkable happened at Robb Elementary. Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old former student, shot and killed 19 students and two teachers. In the investigation and days following the mass shooting, police officers announced they knew how the gunman entered the school.
Col. Steven McCraw said at the press conference: "The exterior door was propped open by a teacher." The unnamed teacher was Emilia "Amy" Marin. A few days later, McCraw retracted that accusation, saying instead the door did not properly lock as it should have. But the damage was done.
Marin spoke exclusively to ABC News for the first time since the horrific incident. She wants to tell her story and set the record straight. Marin suffers from post-traumatic stress and is forever changed because of the tragedy.
Marin told ABC News correspondent John Quiñones: "I died that day. Right now, I'm lost. Sometimes I go into a dark place. And it's hard when I'm there, but I tell myself, 'you can't let him win. You can't let him win.'"
Marin assures viewers that she is working through her grief and PTSD. “I'm a fighter," she said. "I will be OK. I'm going to learn to live with this."
Marin wants officials such as McCraw to know their words impacted her.
“What I go through, McCraw doesn't know. Nobody knows. But it was very easy for him to point the finger at me,” she said.
“A few weeks ago, I told my counselor 'It would have been better if he would have shot me, too.' because the pain is unbearable," Marin said of her treatment to help with her PTSD. "And when you have people who are higher up in ranks like McCraw, you would think that they know their job well. He has no idea what his words did."
"At the outset of the investigation, DPS reported that an unnamed teacher at Robb Elementary School used a rock to prop open the door that the shooter used to enter the school building," Travis Considine, a DPS spokesman, said in a statement to ABC News. "It was later determined that the same teacher removed the rock from the doorway prior to the arrival of the shooter, and closed the door, unaware that the door was unlocked.”
"DPS corrected this error in public announcements and testimony and apologizes to the teacher and her family for the additional grief this has caused to an already horrific situation," Considine added.
Marin wants people to know what really happened that day directly from her. She was preparing for an end of the year party when she heard a car crash and went inside to get her phone to call 911. While on the phone with 911, she quickly realized the crash was more than she first thought.
"I walked out and then they yelled he had a gun, I ran back in. I ran back to the building and I closed the door. I am telling the operator that he is shooting. I could hear the kids screaming," Marin recalls.
Marin hid but suffers from survivors' guilt. She often wonders if she should have tried to intervene.
"If I had gone out a few seconds later I would've met him outside. He would have shot me. With him shooting me, would I have saved all of them?”
When she first heard McCraw’s statements accusing her, Marin had to be taken to the hospital.
"I was shaking from head to toe. The nurse walked out and my boss came in and I told her 'I closed that door,'" she recalls.
Five months after the tragic incident, Marin is now ready to stand up for herself. She states: "Maybe a lot of people didn't know that it was me. But they're going to know now and I've always been the type. Like, I'll be respectful, but I'll speak up. And people don't like it when you speak up. But you're defending yourself. And I know that I have to defend myself."
"To Mr. McCraw: it is your job to investigate when any incident like that happens," she said, calling out the investigator. "You sit there and you investigate. Your job was to sit there and watch that video to watch from beginning to end. You chose not to."
