UVALDE, Texas –
A press conference on the shooting at a Texas elementary school erupted Wednesday when Democratic gun candidate Beto O’Rourke blamed Republican Gov. Greg Abbott for inaction before the last of a long series of mass shootings in the state.
As the Republican governor was finishing his remarks, O’Rourke approached the stage, pointed at the governor, and said, “That’s for you.”
“You’re not doing anything. You’re not offering us anything,” O’Rourke told Abbott as a police officer held out his arm, as if to prevent the candidate from storming the stage. Some on stage called O’Rourke, along with Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, a Republican, calling him a “sick son of a bitch.”
When officers escorted O’Rourke out of the auditorium, some of the assembled crowd mocked him as a woman chanted, “Let him talk.” Some people cried.
“It’s up to you until you decide to do something different,” O’Rourke said. “It simply came to our notice then. Someone must defend the children of this state or they will continue to be killed as they were killed yesterday in Uvalde. “
While Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick spoke of the need for mental health care inside, O’Rourke called for gun control from the parking lot. “If we don’t do anything, we’ll keep seeing it,” he said, “year after year, school after school, child after child.”