Texas
“I’m so scared”: 911 recordings reveal fear and urgency of those trapped in Uvalde elementary school
![“I’m so scared”: 911 recordings reveal fear and urgency of those trapped in Uvalde elementary school](https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/zS8xQqRhFY7r0sVDqYBcP41a0gY=/1200x630/filters:quality(95):focal(0x0:3000x2000)/static.texastribune.org/media/files/f3654022cd6270781601bd8734990602/20221101%20uvalde%20911.jpg)
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Editor’s be aware: This story accommodates audio of individuals calling 911 throughout a mass taking pictures incident.
The primary two 911 calls got here in at 11:29 a.m.
A person had crashed his truck right into a ditch by Robb Elementary Faculty in Uvalde, and he was dashing towards the varsity with a gun.
The gunman fired greater than 100 rounds by the point police dispatchers acquired one other name two minutes later. An grownup voice could possibly be heard making “shh” sounds for almost 44 seconds earlier than the cellphone abruptly minimize out.
Monica Martinez, a STEM trainer who was hiding in a closet on the faculty, was amongst a number of callers from inside the varsity who adopted.
What occurred on Could 24 in Uvalde is effectively documented. Lots of of regulation enforcement officers from almost two dozen native, state and federal businesses rushed to the scene. It took greater than an hour earlier than they entered the rooms the place the gunman was situated. They handled the disaster as considered one of a barricaded suspect who was not an lively risk. Finally, 19 kids and two lecturers had been killed within the worst faculty taking pictures in Texas historical past.
Within the ensuing 5 months, the delayed regulation enforcement response has spurred state and federal investigations. The college district’s police chief was fired. He has publicly contested his termination, saying he was unfairly blamed. The performing Uvalde police chief has additionally been suspended and a state trooper fired. The chief of the Texas Rangers, the Division of Public Security unit that’s main the state investigation, retired abruptly in September, as did his deputy in August. A number of state police troopers stay below investigation. Officers going through punishment both couldn’t instantly be reached for remark or declined to reply.
The Texas Tribune and ProPublica have for the primary time obtained recordings of greater than 20 emergency calls and dozens of hours of conversations between police and dispatchers that lay naked the rising sense of urgency and desperation conveyed by kids and lecturers. In chilling, muffled 911 calls, they begged for assist from inside the varsity.
Though the existence of some 911 calls and physique digital camera footage has been reported publicly, the totality of the recordings present the pervasiveness of the miscommunication that unfolded that day.
Throughout some calls, dispatchers and officers warned that class was imagined to be in session in rooms the place the gunman had been taking pictures. On others, regulation enforcement officers mentioned they had been unaware that anybody other than the gunman was within the school rooms, at the same time as dispatchers acquired calls from kids in search of assist.
Ten-year-old Khloie Torres was a type of kids. Whereas state officers beforehand launched a transcript with excerpts from considered one of Khloie’s cellphone calls, the information organizations obtained further recordings of her pleading for assist that had not been made public. Khloie survived that day.
In an interview, her father, Ruben Torres Jr., mentioned he’s “disgusted” that police didn’t rapidly intervene. The truth that his daughter needed to wait so lengthy to get assistance is “mind-boggling,” Torres mentioned.
“There was no management. That dude had management your entire 77 minutes,” mentioned Torres, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. “They didn’t have him barricaded. He had the police barricaded exterior. It’s plain and easy. The police didn’t go in. That’s your job: to go in.”
DPS officers didn’t reply to questions from ProPublica and the Tribune concerning the recordings. A spokesperson for the town of Uvalde, the police chief, the Uvalde mayor and the county’s chief govt declined to remark.
Communication was a key failure all through the response. Many officers assumed the varsity police chief, Pete Arredondo, was in command. He didn’t have his radios with him, issued few orders and later mentioned he by no means seen himself because the officer in cost. County officers mentioned emergency communications had been overwhelmed within the rural group, which generally has solely two dispatchers answering 911 calls and juggling the transmission of key data to emergency responders.
The emergency radio system has two 911 traces and three emergency channels. Its frequency is designed for the huge, 15,000-square-mile stretch of scrubby desert terrain, reasonably than for high-density city areas the place tools should work inside buildings, mentioned Forrest Anderson, the county’s emergency administration coordinator who oversaw the radio system’s implementation 20 years in the past. A legislative committee that later examined the response famous that metropolis police radios labored solely intermittently inside the varsity.
Radio site visitors and photographs obtained by the information organizations present that some police knew concerning the 911 calls, however simply what number of officers stays unclear.
Excessive-stakes emergency responses at all times have some communications gaps, however expert incident commanders must be ready to beat such challenges, mentioned Bob Harrison, a former California police chief and homeland safety researcher on the Rand Corp., a nationwide suppose tank.
Harrison famous that most of the radios utilized by Border Patrol brokers additionally didn’t work through the Uvalde taking pictures response, however the company’s SWAT group, which doesn’t sometimes lead the response at school shootings as a result of it’s a federal company targeted on immigration and nationwide safety, mobilized to breach the classroom as soon as it arrived and decided nobody was in management.
“If a powerful unifying command scene was arrange rapidly, these discrepancies wouldn’t have been essentially related, and there would have been one voice and one command,” Harrison mentioned of the issues with 911 and radio communication.
The state legislative committee reached the same conclusion in its July investigative report, which said {that a} succesful incident commander would have realized that the radios had been “principally ineffective” and that responders wanted different technique of communication to transmit key particulars corresponding to calls from victims inside the school rooms. The report highlighted that regulation enforcement is educated to be “ready to reply successfully with out dependable radio communications” and will make use of a collection of methods together with utilizing “runners” to ship messages in individual.
However that day, kids and lecturers, together with Martinez, waited to be rescued.
At nighttime closet of room 116, Martinez stayed on the cellphone with a dispatcher and tried to apply a key tenet of the varsity’s active-shooter protocol: Be quiet.
Class must be in session
When a brand new spherical of gunshots rang out from behind the closed door of the 2 adjoining school rooms, Uvalde police Sgt. Daniel Coronado sprinted exterior, panting closely as he relayed an pressing message on his radio to metropolis police dispatchers.
“He’s contained in the constructing,” Coronado mentioned of the shooter at 11:38 a.m. “We’ve got him contained.”
He requested for ballistic shields and requested that somebody name DPS.
Then he repeated: “He’s contained. We’ve bought a number of officers contained in the constructing right now. We imagine he’s barricaded in one of many workplaces. Male topic remains to be taking pictures.”
4 minutes later, a dispatcher requested that somebody verify room 111, the place the pictures had been coming from. It was the classroom of fourth-grade trainer Eva Mireles, a 44-year-old educator and the spouse of Ruben Ruiz, a Uvalde Consolidated Impartial Faculty District police officer.
“See if the category is in there proper now or in the event that they’re someplace else,” the dispatcher mentioned.
One other officer gasped.
“That’s going to be Ruben’s woman,” he mentioned, referring to Mireles.
“Oh no, oh no,” Coronado muttered below his breath.
The alternate demonstrates some officers knew early on that the gunman was not barricaded alone within the classroom. Extra indicators, and clear confirmations, would come quickly after — but for a lot of the response, they might not be heard.
At 11:48 a.m., Ruiz, who was standing within the hallway exterior of the classroom, advised officers that his spouse had been shot. Ruiz mentioned his spouse had known as him and mentioned she was “dying.” Mireles later died in an ambulance.
Officers escorted Ruiz exterior, taking away his weapon for his security, in line with interviews officers on the scene later gave to the Texas Rangers. However they didn’t try to enter the classroom. One of many police lieutenants who heard Ruiz’s announcement advised investigators that they had been ready for DPS and Border Patrol to reach “with higher tools like rifle-rated shields.”
By that point, Martinez, the trainer, had been on the cellphone with 911 for greater than 10 minutes. She had advised the dispatcher that she might hear individuals within the hallway. The dispatcher urged her to remain quiet and stay barricaded within the closet.
“You continue to there with me?” the dispatcher requested at about 11:47 a.m.
“I’m nonetheless right here,” Martinez whispered.
Seven minutes later, an officer requested if any kids had been inside with the gunman.
“No, we don’t know something about that,” one other officer replied on the radio.
“Every little thing is closed, like the children should not in there,” a 3rd responded.
A few minute later, an officer requested for the shooter’s location.
“The college chief of police is in there with him,” one other officer replied.
Because the back-and-forth continued, regulation enforcement officers rescued individuals from different school rooms. At 11:58 a.m., Martinez advised the dispatcher that she once more heard somebody knocking. She mentioned the individual had recognized themselves as a police officer.
“Open the door,” the dispatcher mentioned, confirming that the individual on the opposite aspect was regulation enforcement. “Keep on the road with me till you make contact with him.”
“I’m coming,” the trainer whispered.
Her sobs carried by way of the cellphone.
The trainer didn’t return calls and emails in search of remark.
Confusion marks response
Some kids in school rooms 111 and 112 with the gunman stored calling 911, in search of assist even after they suspected it was not secure to talk. One of many first calls from a trapped scholar, at 12:03 p.m., was barely audible.
The decision lasted a minute and 24 seconds. The kid was silent because the dispatcher requested their identify and what room they had been in.
“Good day, ma’am? Are you able to hear me?” the dispatcher requested.
Then at 12:10 p.m., Khloie known as.
“There may be lots of our bodies,” The New York Instances beforehand reported that she advised a dispatcher, including that her trainer had been shot however was nonetheless alive.
Khloie stayed on the cellphone for greater than 17 minutes. Whereas she spoke, one other metropolis police dispatcher answered a name from DPS and erroneously reported that the varsity police chief was contained in the classroom with the gunman.
“We’re sending everyone that we will, um, heading on the market, however do you will have any accidents, fatals, something?” the DPS dispatcher responded.
Just one feminine was shot, and maybe an officer was injured, the Uvalde dispatcher replied.
A dispatcher’s voice crackled by way of the Uvalde police and Border Patrol radio site visitors, notifying that she had a toddler on the road.
Hallway surveillance video from inside the varsity on the time exhibits a minimum of 4 regulation enforcement officers, one with a defend, kneeling exterior the classroom door with their weapons drawn.
It’s not clear if the officers heard that message.
At 12:14 p.m., a state trooper’s physique digital camera captured somebody saying, “There’s victims in there, dude.” The trooper was standing exterior a door to the varsity, with a minimum of eight officers from totally different businesses seen from that digital camera angle.
“We have to get in there,” one responded.
Nobody did.
5 minutes later, one other woman in room 111 known as 911. The recording of the decision, which lasted a minute and 17 seconds, is usually inaudible.
Within the hallway, Uvalde County Constable Emmanuel Zamora wrongly advised that the gunman could have already shot himself.
“One shot on the finish was self-inflicted, perhaps,” Zamora mentioned within the recording, referring to an earlier burst of gunfire.
Zamora didn’t reply to texts and emails about his feedback, which had not been beforehand reported.
It was the primary time he acknowledged to different responders that anybody was wounded inside the 2 school rooms, in line with new footage obtained by the information organizations. The legislative report famous solely that he acknowledged “some casualties” 14 minutes later. Arredondo didn’t return a message in search of remark shared with him by his former lawyer.
A minute later, the gunman fired once more.
Officers within the hallway flinched, fashioned a line and began strolling down the corridor, then all of a sudden stopped, a state trooper’s physique digital camera footage reveals.
Simply after the pictures had been fired at 12:21 p.m., the varsity chief started making an attempt to speak to the shooter for the primary time, in line with communications and information.
“When you can hear me, sir, please put your firearm down, sir,” Arredondo mentioned. “We don’t need anybody else damage.”
Simply after 12:30 p.m., three troopers once more superior towards the school rooms earlier than an unidentified individual mentioned “no, no, no,” in line with physique digital camera footage.
As soon as once more, they stopped.
A DPS trooper who made his method into the hallway round that point requested one other officer if there have been kids within the classroom. The response was, “We don’t know.”
By then, greater than 20 minutes had lapsed since Khloie first begged a dispatcher for assist. She ended the preliminary name when she feared the gunman, who she felt taunted the youngsters, was getting shut, her father later recalled.
She known as 911 once more at 12:36 p.m.
About two minutes later, Khloie as soon as extra requested for police.
But once more, a dispatcher tried to reassure her.
“I’ve somebody that’s making an attempt to get to you, OK,” she mentioned.
Khloie whispered that she thought she heard the police subsequent door.
“That was you?”
Because the Border Patrol strike group was virtually able to breach, DPS Capt. Joel Betancourt went on the radio and ordered the brokers to attend.
The captain didn’t reply to requests for remark left for him by way of DPS.
The group ignored the order and entered the classroom, rapidly killing the shooter. The beforehand silent hallway crammed with officers ready to behave.
Somebody yelled, “Make a gap!” as police carried out wounded kids. Regulation enforcement officers motioned for individuals who weren’t as severely injured to stroll out on their very own.
Because the onsite paramedics targeted on probably the most critically injured, officers started taking different damage kids to the hospital. Khloie was amongst them.
“I used to be on the cellphone with a police officer,” she advised the trooper analyzing her because the screams of different wounded kids reverberated within the background.
The officer, whose physique digital camera had earlier picked up a dispatcher describing that decision, appeared stunned.
“Oh, that was you?” the trooper requested.
Uriel J. García contributed reporting.
Disclosure: The New York Instances has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full listing of them right here.
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Texas
How Texas is still investigating migrant aid groups on the border after a judge's scathing order
![How Texas is still investigating migrant aid groups on the border after a judge's scathing order](https://res.cloudinary.com/graham-media-group/image/upload/f_auto/q_auto/c_thumb,w_700/v1/media/gmg/YZRKIGRR6BCH5M5NAHT2OLCDPM.jpg?_a=ATAPphC0)
MCALLEN, Texas – Texas is widening investigations into aid organizations along the U.S.-Mexico border over claims that nonprofits are helping migrants illegally enter the country, taking some groups to court and making demands that a judge called harassment after the state tried shuttering an El Paso shelter.
The efforts are led by Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office has defended the state’s increasingly aggressive actions on the border, including razor wire barriers and a law that would allow police to arrest migrants who enter the U.S. illegally.
Since February, Paxton has asked for documents from at least four groups in Texas that provide shelter and food to migrants. That includes one of the largest migrant aid organizations in Texas, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which on Wednesday asked a court to stop what the group called a “fishing expedition into a pond where no one has ever seen a fish.”
The scrutiny from the state has not stopped the organizations’ work. But leaders of some groups say the investigations have caused some volunteers to leave and worry it will cast a chilling effect among those working to help migrants in Texas.
Here are some things to know about the investigations and the groups:
What started the investigations?
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott sent Paxton a letter in 2022 urging him to investigate the role nongovernmental organizations play in “planning and facilitating the illegal transportation of illegal immigrants across our borders.” Two years earlier, Abbott began rolling out his multibillion-dollar border security apparatus known as Operation Lone Star.
Without citing evidence, Abbott’s letter referenced unspecified “recent reports” that some groups may be acting unlawfully. Paxton later accused Annunciation House in El Paso, one of the oldest migrant shelters on the border, of human smuggling and other crimes.
The groups have denied the accusations and no charges have been filed.
Other Republicans and conservative groups have cheered on Texas’ effort.
Which groups are targets?
Many nonprofit organizations on the Texas border are faith-based and have operated for years — and in some cases decades — without state scrutiny.
Several groups have coordinated with Abbott’s busing program that has transported more than 119,000 migrants to Democratic-led cities across the U.S. Some of those partnerships began to erode, however, following reports of poor conditions onboard the buses and frustration among migrant aid groups that migrants were arriving in cities without warning.
In addition to Annunciation House, Paxton has sent letters to Angeles Sin Fronteras in Mission, Texas; Team Brownsville; and Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.
The Catholic Charities group is part of the Brownsville diocese and offers services to existing residents as well as migrants. It opened a shelter for migrants in 2017 that typically receives more than 1,000 people a week, most of whom stay only a few days.
In court documents, Catholic Charities said it provided over 100 pages of documents to Paxton’s office and a sworn statement from its executive director. But in June, Paxton asked a court to allow the state to depose a member of the organization about intake procedures, communication with local and state law enforcement, and the organization’s “practices for facilitating alien crossings over the Texas-Mexico border.”
Catholic Charities has denied wrongdoing and this week asked a judge to deny Paxton’s request.
What have courts said so far?
This week, a judge in El Paso accused Paxton’s office of overreaching in its pursuit of evidence of criminal activity.
That ruling involved Annunciation House, whose records Paxton began seeking in February. The Catholic shelter in El Paso opened in 1978.
In a scathing ruling, state District Judge Francisco X. Dominguez said Paxton’s attempts to enforce a subpoena for records of migrants violated the shelter’s constitutional rights.
“This is outrageous and intolerable,” the judge wrote.
Paxton’s office has not returned messages seeking comment on the ruling. The state could appeal the decision.
It is not clear when a court might rule in the investigation involving Catholic Charities.
Have Texas’ actions disrupted aid groups?
Each group that received letters from Paxton’s office has continued to offer aid to migrants.
But at Annunciation House, executive director Ruben Garcia said negative comments from Paxton have caused some volunteers to leave over concerns that they could get caught up in the legal process.
Marissa Limon Garza, the executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, said the legal actions toward their partners are seen as an attack on values of binational communities that help migrant communities. Garza added it’s had a “chilling” effect.
“If this organization that has over 40 years of commitment to standing in solidarity with the most vulnerable in our region is in the eye of the administration, that makes you wonder if your organization will be next,” Limon Garza said.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Texas
Old pipes cause Texas cities to lose tens of billions of gallons of water each year
![Old pipes cause Texas cities to lose tens of billions of gallons of water each year](https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/NVdYWGZmj64aly55jjb7c6zD-XY=/1200x630/filters:quality(95)/static.texastribune.org/media/files/8a8851f5e56a6f3768d059adcebaf520/SAWS%20Water%20Main%20Break%20CS%2012%20TT.jpg)
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Texas’ most populous cities lost roughly 88 billion gallons of water last year because of aging water infrastructure and extreme heat, costing them millions of dollars and straining the state’s water supply, according to self-reported water loss audits.
The documents show that bigger municipalities are not immune to water issues often seen in smaller, less-resourced communities around the state. All but one big city saw increased water loss from last year’s audits.
While cities are losing water because of inaccurate meters or other data issues, the main factors are leaks and main breaks.
Here’s how much each of Texas’ biggest cities lost last year, according to their self-reported audits:
- Houston: 31.8 billion
- San Antonio: 19.5 billion
- Dallas: 17.6 billion
- Austin: 7.1 billion
- Fort Worth: 5.9 billion
- El Paso: 4.8 billion
Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth and El Paso must submit water loss audits to the Texas Water Development Board yearly. Other water agencies must do audits only every five years, unless the city has over 3,300 connections or receives money from the board.
“What we have right now is not sustainable [or] tenable,” said Jennifer Walker, National Wildlife Federation’s Texas Coast and Water Program director.
The cities of Houston and Dallas saw the biggest increase in lost water reported. Houston saw a 30% jump from last year’s audit, while Dallas saw an increase of 18%.
Houston is the largest populous city in the state, home to roughly 2.3 million Texans; it lost around 31 billion gallons of water last year.
Houston Public Works blames the region’s long drought from June 2022 to December last year for the increase. Droughts cause clay in soil to dry up and shrink, stressing older water lines and making them more likely to break and leak. Officials said this, combined with aging infrastructure, led to a significant increase in water leaks across the city.
“HPW will continue to pursue all funding options available to help replace aging infrastructure,” the Houston spokesperson said.
Aging infrastructure isn’t only a Houston problem. Dallas officials said they only expected a roughly 4% increase in water loss in 2023. They saw a double-digit increase instead.
A Dallas Water Utilities spokesperson said the city is investigating the cause of the increase and “reviewing records to ensure all allowable unbilled/unmetered authorized uses were properly accounted for in the 2023 calculation.”
On the other side of North Texas, Fort Worth saw an increase from 5.6 billion gallons lost in 2022 to 5.9 billion gallons in 2023, losing Cowtown more than $8 million.
Walker, from the National Wildlife Federation, said numbers are also rising because cities are getting more accurate in reporting water loss.
Fort Worth has a “MyH2O program” that replaced all manual read meters with remote read meters and implemented a Real Water Loss Management Plan in 2020 to focus the city efforts related to leak surveys, leak detection and the creation of district metering areas.
“It is actually a testament to how we are using available data to make better decisions and improve reporting with a higher level of confidence,” said Fort Worth Water Conservation Manager Micah Reed.
Last year, voters passed a proposition that created a new fund specifically for water infrastructure projects that are overseen by the Texas Water Development Board.
The agency now has $1 billion to invest in projects that address various issues, from water loss and quality to acquiring new water sources and addressing Texas’ deteriorating pipes. It’s the largest investment in water infrastructure by state lawmakers since 2013.
Walker calls the $1 billion a “drop in the bucket.”
Texas 2036, an Austin-based think tank, expects the state needs to spend more than $150 billion over the next 50 years on water infrastructure.
While some of the Texas Water Fund must be focused on projects in rural areas with populations of less than 150,000, Walker said the bigger cities could also receive some funding.
In San Antonio, the San Antonio Water System isn’t “waiting for [the state] to come and tackle the problem for us.”
The city lost around 19 billion gallons of water in 2023 and has seen an increase over the last five years.
“We’re in a state that doesn’t even fund public education,” said Robert Puente, president and CEO of the San Antonio Water System. “So good luck to us getting some money from the state on these issues.”
Earlier this week, the SAWS board of trustees unanimously approved a new five-year water conservation plan.
The city of Austin lost around 7 billion gallons of water in 2023.
Austin has hired a consultant to review our water loss practices and metrics, according to city officials. The capital city is also in the process of replacing water mains around Austin.
Walker said while Texas lawmakers should invest more money in water infrastructure, city officials also need to hire more staff and better planning to address water loss.
The one city that lost less water in 2023 was El Paso, which reported losing 475 million fewer gallons last year. Since El Paso is in the desert, water conservation and having a “watertight” infrastructure is the city’s main focus, said Aide Fuentes, El Paso Wastewater Treatment Manager.
“That makes us a little bit different from the rest of Texas in that sense,” Fuentes said.
El Paso Water officials aim to reduce water loss by 10%.
Walker said the data shows that cities should make the case to the state lawmakers to continue to address water Infrastructure in the next legislative session. She added this issue isn’t going away.
“We really need [to] try to live with what we have and not lose the water that we already have in place and make sure that it’s reaching its intended destination,” Walker said.
Disclosure: San Antonio Water System and Texas 2036 have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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Texas
Four injured in Fourth of July shark attacks in Texas, Florida
![Four injured in Fourth of July shark attacks in Texas, Florida](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_nbcnews-fp-1200-630,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2024-07/240704-south-padre-shark-jk-2055-23e805.jpg)
A shark bit three people off a southern Texas beach in what the city’s fire chief called an unprecedented incident on the Fourth of July, the same day another person was bitten by a shark in Florida, officials said.
In Texas, three people were bitten in the city of South Padre Island, on a barrier island near Brownsville, and the shark was later located and “pushed out to deeper water,” Fire Chief Jim Pigg said.
“It’s unprecedented here on South Padre Island,” he said. There were two shark bite incidents at different times and locations Thursday, he said.
Police responded to a 911 call that reported “a severe shark bite to the leg” at 11 a.m., city spokesperson Nikki Soto said, and the victim was taken to a local hospital.
After a second 911 call about a shark attack, firefighters found two people who had been bitten by a shark, Pigg said. They were also taken to a hospital.
Kyle Jud, 46, said he saw a woman pulled from the water who appeared to have a bite to a leg.
“Beach patrol lifted her up — her calf was just gone, shredded. Horrific,” Jud said. He posted video of a shark in the water as a helicopter and a boat patrolled.
One of the victims was flown out of a Brownsville hospital for further treatment, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said.
“Shark encounters of this nature are not a common occurrence in Texas,” the department said. “When bites from sharks do occur, they are usually a case of mistaken identity by sharks looking for food.”
Pigg said that it has not been determined what type of shark was involved and that an investigation was underway.
Lifeguards were encouraging people in South Padre Island, a beach town of around 2,000 on the barrier island of the same name, to stay out of the water or at least to go no further than knee-deep, Pigg said.
After the shark was spotted and pushed out to deeper water, there had been no further sightings, but Pigg said officials would stay vigilant.
South Padre Island Mayor Patrick McNulty said, “Our hearts and prayers are with the injured and their families and we hope for a speedy recovery.”
In New Smyrna Beach, Florida, a 21-year-old man was bitten by a shark while he was playing football in knee-deep water around 4 p.m., said Tamra Malphurs, interim director of Volusia County Beach Safety.
The man, who was visiting the city on the Atlantic coast from Ohio, was taken to a hospital, and his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, Malphurs said.
There were 36 unprovoked shark attacks against humans in the U.S. last year, and two of those people died, the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File said in its most recent annual report.
The project, which documents shark attacks around the world, says that the risk of being attacked by a shark is relatively very small but that swimmers can minimize their risk even further by staying in groups and closer to shore.
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