President Biden told a local lawmaker on Sunday while visiting Uvalde that the federal government could provide resources to demolish Robb Elementary School, where 19 children and two teachers were shot dead earlier this week.
“He said,” I’m not leaving. I bring you resources. We will try to destroy this school, build a new one, “state senator Roland Gutiérrez, who represents Uvalde, told KSAT.
“I can’t tell you how many young children I’ve talked to don’t want to go into this building. They are just traumatized. They have just been destroyed. ”
Other mass shooting sites have been demolished in recent years.
Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman shot and killed 26 people in 2012, was demolished and replaced by a new $ 50 million school on the same property in Newtown, Connecticut.
Colorado school officials were considering sweeping Columbine High School in 2019 due to a “morbid fascination” surrounding the building where 13 people were killed in 1999, but eventually decided not to demolish it.
The First Baptist Church congregation in Sutherland Springs, Texas, about 110 miles east of Uvalde, voted last year to demolish the old church where a gunman opened fire in 2017, killing 26 people, according to KENS.
Biden also told Gutierrez that he has pledged to bring mental health resources to the community after this week’s shooting.
U.S. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visit and place a bouquet of flowers at a memorial cross in front of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.ZUMAPRESS.com
“This is a community that will need therapy. There is a psychiatrist in Uvalde, very few mental health therapists. We will change that. It is essential,” Gutierrez told KSAT.
The president visited a monument outside Robb Elementary School on Sunday before attending Mass at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church and then meeting with the families of the victims and those first responsible.