Uvalde is a small town. About two weeks ago, Angie Garza, a grandmother who helps run a car radiator repair shop on Main Street, took Celia Gonzales’ gray Ford truck – she needed to fix the air conditioning.
On a follow-up visit a few days later, Garza recalls, there seemed to be something in his client’s mind. “She looked distressed. She said she was dealing with her grandson.”
On Tuesday, Gonzales was shot by his 18-year-old grandson, Salvador Ramos, and is still in critical condition. Ramos took his truck for a short drive to Robb Elementary School, before colliding with a ditch.
Wearing armor and an automatic rifle, legally sold, he entered the school and killed 19 children and two teachers. Among the dead was Amerie Jo Garza, Angie’s granddaughter. She was 10 years old.
“We’re just praying it’s okay… Up there,” says Garza, with a tearful look in the sky. “She was sweet, smart. We loved her. “
“Have teachers, or staff, carry a gun,” said Marina Small, a 66-year-old retired teacher who lives in nearby San Antonio. © Dave Lee / FT
In addition to his pain, Garza has questions, like many others in the city of Texas, about the response of the UValde police to the shootings.
Garza wants to know why the gunman was able to enter the school through a door that, according to a police report, was left unlocked. Others question why he was able to enter without hindrance and without being challenged by security personnel who had to prevent this from being possible.
People here are very outraged because it took about 90 minutes after the attack began before Ramos was killed; not by the local police who arrived at the scene in a matter of minutes, but by a Border Patrol officer who arrived later and was able to access the classroom where Ramos had barricaded himself. Uvalde, a predominantly Latin city, is just 60 miles from the Mexican border.
“People are angry because the police didn’t come in when they should have,” said Diana Chapa, 60, who lives in a house two doors down from where Ramos lived with his grandparents. “If you’re a police officer, you have training. I think they should have come in. “
Chaotic images of smartphones, taken outside the school while the attack took place, show desperate parents begging the police to enter the school and confront the gunman, or be allowed to. to enter. A video shows a man being nailed to the ground by officers. According to a Wall Street Journal report, a mother was able to walk through the police barricade and retrieve her two children from inside the school.
“No one was confronted,” said Victor Escalon of the Texas Department of Homeland Security, a state law enforcement agency. © Tannen Maury / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
Conflicting police accounts are rapidly undermining trust. Officials had initially said the gunman had been approached by a school district officer outside the school. On Thursday afternoon that account had fundamentally changed. “He didn’t confront anyone,” said Victor Escalon of the Texas Department of Homeland Security, a state law enforcement agency, during a news conference, adding that his team was still trying. reconstruct the facts.
“I think they are embarrassed or scared,” said a resident who lived near the school but asked not to be named as a family member working for the force.
Questions are also raised as to why the warning signs were ignored in time to act, in particular how Ramos was able to purchase two automatic rifles from Oasis Outback, an outdoor recreational mega-shop within driving distance. from Garza’s garage on Main Street, without worrying.
Following the attack, the store, which is still open for business, changed its digital promotional board to “Pray for Uvalde” and “#UvaldeStrong.”
If there’s one common thread of agreement among the people of Uvalde, it’s that it should have been a lot harder, or maybe not at all possible, for any 18-year-old to buy a gun, let alone a young man described. for their next ones as problems.
“It’s crazy that an 18-year-old is able to buy something so powerful,” said Julio Garcia, a neighbor of Uvalde, after a vigil on Wednesday night. He said he knew several of the victims and their families. His 16-year-old son, Abraham, said gun laws should be “stricter,” even if it only meant raising the minimum age requirements.
When U.S. President Joe Biden visits the city, which he said he will do on Sunday, he will face calls for decisive leadership in very divisible circumstances. Uvalde County voted 57% in favor of Donald Trump in 2020, and the Republican message of better security and mental health care as a method of preventing the crisis of armed violence in the United States seems to resonate here more that the suggestion that strict arms control, the arms ban, is the answer.
“Have teachers, or staff, carry a gun,” said Marina Small, a 66-year-old retired teacher who lives in nearby San Antonio. “It simply came to our notice then. Be very discreet, very private about it. But if they hear that alarm, grab your gun and train. “