You may have seen this image pulled from the Uvalde surveillance video circulating on Twitter. For many, it was the ultimate image of dereliction of duty, an officer stopping to check his phone instead of rushing to confront the shooter.

Uvalde officer checks phone with Punisher lock screen during Texas school shooting https://t.co/luSWPUnpwo pic.twitter.com/v7KcvzynFl

— New York Post (@nypost) July 13, 2022

Controversial Punisher logo visible on phone of officer who responded to Uvalde shooting https://t.co/cFi26wz2Q9

— Dallas Morning News (@dallasnews) July 13, 2022

Lots of people on Twitter were angry about it.

This really makes my blood boil. This officer is checking his phone while kids & teachers are literally dying a few doors down. And if it this couldn’t get any worse, his screensaver is the Punisher skull with a thin blue line. #Uvalde #uvaldevideo #uvaldePolice pic.twitter.com/w77alqqjVT

— Terrance Carroll (@speakercarroll) July 13, 2022

checkin my neat-o phone with the punisher logo (sooo cool!) while i’m hidin listenin to the kids gettin killed (punisher is so badass also i like deadpool & john wick) https://t.co/rwtwFtratr

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) July 12, 2022

Cops in Uvalde checked their phones and got hand sanitizer while children were massacred.

My God. pic.twitter.com/E8K6UJhqs0

— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) July 12, 2022

At one point, defund the police was trending because people were using the Uvalde video to call for it. The top tweet has more than 300k likes.

Wow this blew up! Remember kids, all cops are bastards and abolishing the police is the only way forward. Also, listen to my podcast about the San Fernando Valley @818heartbreak

— Albert Jaragua Corado (@digitalurn) July 13, 2022

I have never advocated for giving police money and I never will. BUT I would pay a penny for the thoughts of the officer in this scene.

And yes, that's the punisher logo on their cellphone they're holding while "engaging" an active shooter… pic.twitter.com/mLdriFCc1M

— 𝙲𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚜 𝙻. – 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝚁𝙰𝙳𝙴 𝙲𝙰𝙼𝙴𝚁𝙰 (@comradecamera) July 13, 2022

There are hundreds if not thousands more like this but you get the idea. Lots of people dunking on this cop in particular. But there was more to the story. This officer has been identified as Ruben Ruiz. His wife Eva Mireles was a teacher at the school. Here’s the timeline of what happened in the full video released this week:

• The shooter enters the school at 11:33.
• Police enter the school about 11:36:00 and move down the hall toward the shooter.
• Ruiz is seen entering about 11:36:17, just seconds later.
• Ruiz checks his phone at 11:36:50.
• Shots fired by the gunman drive the officers back down the hall at 11:36:59.
• Ruiz checks his phone again at 11:37:17. He turns and walks out.
• At 11:37:41, he returns and says “My wife’s shot” to the cops in the hallway.

According to the Texas Tribune, Ruiz’s wife told him in a phone call that she’d been shot. That call must have happened after he walked out.

Mireles told Ruiz in a phone call that she had been shot. Ruiz, standing in the hallway with his pistol drawn, was unable to get to her.

In any case, it’s clear the reason he was checking his phone is that he was receiving messages from his wife as this was happening. After telling other officers she’d been shot he paced around for a few months and then left the hallway again. According to a report last month from the Houston Chronicle, Ruiz tried to advance but had his gun taken away:

“We’ve got an officer, Officer Ruiz, whose wife called him and said she had been shot and she was dying,” McCraw said. “And what happened to him, is he tried to move forward into the hallway. He was detained, and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene.”

Eva Mireles was still alive when the gunman was finally killed more than an hour later but unfortunately she died on the way to the hospital.

Like everyone who has seen this clip, I’m angry at the police officers who retreated at the fist sign of fire from the gunman. They then stood around discussing what to do for more than an hour. Personally I think every one of these officers ought to be fired. They were trained to stack up, go in and neutralize the shooter ASAP. None of them did that until 75 minutes later.

However, officer Ruiz has been treated unfairly based on one image taken out of context. He wasn’t just standing around checking his phone. He was checking on his wife’s safety and was clearly eager to see something done quickly. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel empowered to act on his own while all the other officers on hand decided to set up a useless barricade that dragged on for over an hour. When he allegedly did try to get to her the other officers stopped him and disarmed him.

Here’s the full video so you can see it for yourself. I have the cued up to the moment officer Ruiz checks his phone the first time. Does Ruiz ever return after walking out the 2nd time? I don’t think so.