Lawyer says Uvalde teacher didn't leave a door open before the Texas school shooting, rejecting another changing police claim

• A Robb Elementary School employee didn't leave a door open before the massacre, her lawyer said.
• The unidentified employee's lawyer told the San Antonio Express-News that the door was closed.

A Robb Elementary School employee did not leave a door to the building open before last week's deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, her lawyer said, rejecting authorities' previous claim as the department faced backlash for its changing story around the massacre.

Don Flanary, the attorney, told the San Antonio Express-News reporter Guillermo Contreras on Tuesday that the employee did prop open a door to the school but shut it when she saw the gunman, who eventually entered and killed 19 children and two adults on May 24.

Flanary told the Express-News that the employee remembered kicking away the rock used to prop open the door and pulling it shut as she spoke with police about the gunman shooting outside the school.

"She remembers pulling the door closed while telling 911 that he was shooting," he told the newspaper. "She thought the door would lock because that door is always supposed to be locked."

Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said on Friday that security footage showed the back door of the school was propped open before the shooting and the gunman used it to enter the school before barricading himself in a classroom.

McCraw described the person who propped open the door as a teacher. He said that person called the police at 11:30 a.m. that morning after the gunman crashed his vehicle in a nearby ditch and shot at passersby.

Three minutes later, McCraw said the gunman entered the school through the door.

The Texas Department of Public Safety didn't immediately respond to the employee's claims.

Since last week's mass shooting in Uvalde — the country's deadliest at an elementary school since the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 — law-enforcement officials have made crucial changes to the attack's timeline at least a dozen times.

Enraged parents have questioned why it took over an hour for officers inside the school to confront the gunman. The latest explanation from the public-safety department pointed the finger at the school's police chief who was leading the response. McCraw said the police chief refused to send police in because he thought no children were in danger.