UVALDE, Texas, May 24 (Reuters) – A teenage gunman kills at least 19 children and two teachers after robbing a Texas elementary school on Tuesday, the latest massacre attack fueled by firearms in the United States and the worst school shooting in the country. in almost a decade.
The carnage began with the 18-year-old suspect, identified as Salvador Ramos, shooting his own grandmother, who survived, authorities said.
He fled the scene and crashed his car near Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, a town about 130 km (80 miles) west of San Antonio. There he threw a bloody bloodshed that ended when he was killed, apparently shot by police.
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The reason was not immediately clear.
Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. Sergeant Erick Estrada of the Texas Department of Homeland Security (DPS). he told CNN.
Speaking from the White House hours later, a visibly shaken president, Joe Biden, urged Americans to confront the powerful political arms lobby, which he blamed for blocking the enactment of tougher laws. security of firearms. Read more
Biden ordered the flags to be flown at half-mast daily until sunset on Saturday in observation of the tragedy.
“As a nation, we need to ask ourselves,‘ When, in the name of God, will we face the arms lobby? “Biden said on national television, suggesting a reinstatement of the U.S. ban on assault weapons and other” common sense weapons. Laws. “
Mass shootings in the United States have often provoked public protests and called for stricter controls on arms sales and other firearms controls common in other countries, but these measures have repeatedly failed in the face of strong Republican-led opposition.
Authorities said the suspect in Tuesday’s killings acted alone. Gov. Greg Abbott said the shooter was apparently killed by police who confronted him at school, and that two officers were shot dead, although the governor said his injuries were not serious.
After the first contradictory reports on the number of deaths, Texas public safety officials said Tuesday night that 19 schoolchildren and two teachers had died.
The community, located in the Hill Country region of the state, has about 16,000 residents, nearly 80 percent of them Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census data.
‘MY HEART IS BREAKED’
The school’s students are made up of second-, third- and fourth-graders, according to Pete Arredondo, head of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department. Students in these grades would probably have been between 7 and 10 years old.
“My heart is broken,” School District Superintendent Hal Harrell told reporters at the end of the day, his voice trembling with emotion. “We are a small community and we need your prayers to make it happen.”
A group of about 40 relatives was kicked out of the Willie de Leon Civic Center around 11:30 p.m. Some broke into the parking lot, crying and clinging to each other as police escorted people to their cars.
People are reacting outside the Ssgt Willie Civic Center in Leon, where students were transported from Robb Elementary School after a shooting in Uvalde, Texas, USA, on May 24, 2022. REUTERS / Marco Bello
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PJ Talavera, who runs a martial arts school in the city, was outside the civic center and said his wife’s niece was among the murdered children.
Talavera said the population was in a state of “controlled chaos” just after the shooting, as false rumors spread from other shooters attacking different schools.
“It’s surreal. It’s amazing. There’s a gap inside,” Talavera said.
INTELLIGENT VIOLENCE
A mass shooting 10 days earlier claimed 10 lives in Buffalo, New York, in a predominantly black neighborhood. Authorities have charged an 18-year-old man who is said to have traveled hundreds of miles to Buffalo and opened fire with an assault rifle at a grocery store.
Tuesday’s bloodshed began when the suspect shot his grandmother before she went to school, Texas Department of Homeland Security official Chris Olivarez told Fox News, a development Abbott mentioned before.
“I have no further information on the connection between these two shootings,” the governor said.
San Antonio University Hospital said on Twitter that it had received two patients from the shooting in Uvalde, a 66-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl, both included in critical condition.
Uvalde Memorial Hospital said 15 Robb Elementary students were treated in their emergency room, with two transferred to San Antonio for further care while a third patient was pending. It was not immediately clear if all those students survived.
A 45-year-old victim who was hit by a bullet was also hospitalized at Uvalde Memorial, the hospital said.
Hours after the shooting, police had cordoned off the school with yellow tape. Police vehicles and emergency vehicles were scattered around the perimeter of the school grounds. The uniformed personnel were in small groups, some in camouflage carrying semi-automatic weapons.
WEAPON VIOLENCE EPIDEMIC
The fury was the latest in a series of shootings at mass schools that have periodically rekindled a heated debate between proponents of tighter arms control and those who oppose any legislation that could jeopardize the constitutional right of Americans to bear arms. Read more
Tuesday’s shooting was the deadliest in an American school since a gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December 2012. In 2018, a former student of the U.S. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 students and staff.
Firearms became the leading cause of death for American children and adolescents as of 2020, surpassing motor vehicle accidents, according to a University of Michigan research letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine last month.
The horrors of the day were reflected on Robb Elementary School’s Facebook page, where this week’s posts featured students’ usual activities: a trip to a zoo and a reminder of the date for a gifted and talented shop window.
But on Tuesday, a note was posted at 11:43: “Please know that Robb Elementary is currently blocked due to gunfire in the area. Students and staff are safe in the area. buildings “. A second post was more explicit: “There’s an active shooter at Robb Elementary. Law enforcement is in place.” Finally, a note was published informing parents that they could meet their children in the civic center of the small town. Read more
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Report by Brad Brooks and Marco Bello in Uvalde, Texas; Additional writing and reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional report by Maria Caspani and Tyler Clifford in New York; Daniel Trotta in San Diego; Dan Whitcomb and Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; Katie Paul in San Francisco, Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; and Caitlin Webber and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Grant McCool, Leslie Adler and Howard Goller
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