Fourteen students and a teacher were killed Tuesday in a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.
Abbott said the alleged shooter, an 18-year-old man believed to be from Uvalde, also died.
“He shot and killed 14 students in a horrible, incomprehensible way and killed a teacher. The shooter himself was killed and the officers who responded were believed to have killed him, “Abbott told a news conference.
“The suspect is dead at the moment,” Uvalde District Police Chief Pedro “Pete” Arrendo confirmed during a news conference Tuesday, noting that the suspect is believed to have acted alone during the crime. “atrocious.”
Arrendo described the shooting as a mass casualty incident and said families are being notified.
According to Uvalde Memorial Hospital (UMH), 13 children were taken to the facility for treatment after an active shooter was reported at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
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Two children were also transferred to San Antonio, about 135 miles west of Uvalde, and another child is yet to be transferred.
Law enforcement personnel are out of Robb Elementary School after a shooting on Tuesday, May 24, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas. (Photo by AP / Dario Lopez-Mills)
Two of the people who arrived at UMH died, the hospital said in an online update.
“Please refrain from coming to the hospital at this time,” the update said.
Another hospital, University Health, said it received two patients from the shooting: a child and an adult, a 66-year-old woman in critical condition.
The nature and severity of the injuries were not immediately known, but the shooter was arrested shortly after 1 p.m., the Uvalde police department said.
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The school has only 575 students from 2nd to 4th grade.
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Earlier, the district said all schools in the district were closed due to gunfire in the area.
A UValde police department official said the scene was still active and no other information was available immediately.
The district has said that the city’s civic center will be used as a reunification center and that parents will be able to pick up their children once they have all been counted.
U.S. President Joe Biden has been briefed on the shooting, according to Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
“His prayers are with the families affected by this terrible event, and he will speak tonight when he returns to the White House,” Jean-Pierre said online.
His prayers are with the families affected by this terrible event, and he will speak this evening when he returns to the White House.
– Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) May 24, 2022
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The shooting is the deadliest in Texas since May 18, 2018, when a gunman killed 10 people and injured 13 more at Santa Fe High School.
It also comes after an 18-year-old gunman killed 10 people and injured three others at a supermarket in a predominantly black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. The gunman had posted online that the shooting had racial motivations.
That shooting revived the debate over gun control in the United States, with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul pushing for new bills to further restrict access to firearms to people considered dangerous.
Texas, meanwhile, has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the country. Abbott, a Republican, signed a law last year that allowed Texans to carry weapons without a license or training.
Biden has called on Congress to pass significant gun control legislation following past mass shootings, but action on any restrictions has been routinely blocked by Republicans.
Asked about the push for regulations last week, after delivering a speech condemning white supremacist ideologies behind the Buffalo shootout, Biden admitted: “It will be very difficult … I will not give up trying.”
Since the Columbine High School Massacre in 1999, more than 300,000 children have been shot in 320 schools, according to a Washington Post investigation.
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The shootings have killed at least 163 children, educators and others.
The U.S. government does not monitor school shooting events, and lets most accounts be held by independent advocacy groups and media reports.
– With archives of the Associated Press
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