The two teachers who were shot next to their students at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday, died trying to protect their students after a gunman burst into his classroom, barricaded the doors and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle, he reported. relatives reported by the police.
Nineteen children, aged nine and 10, were killed in the attack, along with Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia.
Garcia’s nephew wrote on Twitter that his aunt “died with children in her arms trying to protect them.” He continued: “These were not only his students, they were also his children.”
The 18-year-old gunman was also killed.
When details of the latest massacre that shook the United States emerged on Wednesday, grief engulfed the small town of Uvalde, with a population of 16,000.
People hug on Wednesday at Robb Elementary School. The 18-year-old gunman was also shot dead at the scene, authorities said. (Nuri Vallbona / Reuters)
The gunman legally bought two AR-style rifles before the attack, shortly after his 18th birthday, and warned on social media minutes before the attack that he had shot his grandmother and fired at her. a school, Governor Gregg Abbot said Wednesday.
Among the dead was a 10-year-old girl, Eliahna Garcia, who loved to sing, dance, and play basketball; a roommate, Xavier Javier López, who was looking forward to a summer of swimming; and a teacher, Eva Mireles, with 17 years of experience whose husband is an officer in the school district’s police department.
“I don’t know how people can sell this kind of weapon to an 18-year-old boy,” Eliahna’s aunt, Syria Arizmendi, said in tears. “What will he use it for but this purpose?”
About 30 minutes before the bloodbath, Salvador Ramos made three posts on social media, Abbot said. According to him, Ramos announced that he would shoot his grandmother, after he had shot the woman, and finally that he would shoot an elementary school.
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“Evil devastated Uvalde”
Abbott said Ramos, a community resident about 135 miles west of San Antonio, had no known criminal or mental health record.
Seventeen people were also injured in the attack.
“Evil devastated Uvalde yesterday. Anyone who shoots his grandmother in the face must have heartache,” Abbott told a news conference. “But it’s much worse for someone to kill young children. It’s intolerable and unacceptable for us to have someone in the state who kills young children in our schools.”
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says the shooting at Robb Elementary was not about an 18-year-old being able to buy a long gun in the state, but about mental health issues. Investigators said the gunman in Tuesday’s shooting had no known criminal or mental health history.
Interrupted press conference
Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who is running against Abbott to govern this year, interrupted the press conference and called the Republican’s response to the tragedy “predictable.”
As Abbott 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 stretched out his arm, as if to keep 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. “This will continue to happen. Someone must defend the children of this state or they will continue to be murdered as they were killed yesterday in Uvalde.”
TARGET | O’Rourke criticizes Abbott’s response:
Democrat Beto O’Rourke interrupts Texas governor at school’s press conference
Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who is challenging Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as governor this year, interrupted Wednesday’s press conference on the state’s deadliest elementary school shooting, calling the response “predictable.” from Republican to tragedy. O’Rourke was escorted while members of the crowd shouted at him.
The children killed in the shooting, which claimed the lives of 21 people, were all gathered in the same classroom, an official said on Wednesday.
Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Texas Department of Public Safety told CNN that all the victims were in the same fourth grade class at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
The gunman barricaded himself inside a classroom, “shooting anyone who gets in his way,” he said.
Law enforcement finally entered the classroom and killed the gunman. Police and other people who responded to the attack also broke windows in the school to allow students and teachers to escape.
Investigators did not immediately reveal any motive. But in the creepy social media posts of the days and hours before the massacre, an account that appeared to belong to Ramos showed photos of his weapons and seemed to indicate that something would happen.
The attack on the predominantly Latin city of Uvalde was the deadliest school shooting in the United States since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.
Gustavo Garcia-Siller, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Sant Antoni, comforts people outside a civic center where students had been transported after the shooting on Tuesday. (Marco Bello / Reuters)
‘My heart is broken’
After the shooting, families waited for hours to receive news from their children. In the civic center of the village where some gathered, the silence was repeatedly broken with shouts and groans. “No! Please, no!” shouted one man as he hugged another.
“My heart is broken today,” Hal Harrell, the school district’s superintendent, said Tuesday night. “We are a small community and we need your prayers to overcome this.”
It was the last traumatic moment for a country marked by a series of massacres, which came just 10 days after a racist and deadly attack on a supermarket in Buffalo, NY.
TARGET | Biden says the United States can no longer delay gun control:
‘Why are we still letting this happen?’ Biden says after the shooting at the Texas school
U.S. President Joe Biden called for new gun restrictions Tuesday night, in an address to the nation after 18 children were killed in a shooting at a Texas elementary school.
U.S. President Joe Biden called for new gun restrictions on an address to the nation Tuesday night.
“As a nation we must ask ourselves, when in the name of God will we face the gun lobby? When in the name of God will we do what needs to be done?” Biden asked. “Why are we willing to live with this butchery?”
Uvalde, home to about 16,000 people, is about 120 kilometers from the Mexican border. Robb Elementary, which has about 600 second-, third-, and fourth-grade students, is located in a mostly residential neighborhood of modest homes.
The attack occurred when the school was counting down to the last days of the school year with a series of themed days. Tuesday was supposed to be “Footloose and Fancy,” with students in nice outfits.
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Anger, questions, and condolences follow the Texas school shooting
Leading Americans, the President of Ukraine, students from India share anger and sadness over the murders of students and teachers in Texas.
The last of the grave tragedies
Leaders around the world, such as Pope Francis, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister at war with Russia, have received condolences.
Sports leagues observed a moment of silence before Tuesday night games, as did the New York Stock Exchange before the opening bell on Wednesday morning.
The Uvalde tragedy was the deadliest school shooting in Texas history and has added to a serious count in the state, which has been the site of some of the deadliest shootings in the United States in the last five years. years.
In 2018, a gunman shot dead 10 people Santa Fe High School in the Houston area. A year earlier, a gunman in a Texas church had killed more than two dozen people during a Sunday service. in the small town of Sutherland Springs. In 2019, one gunman to one Walmart in El Paso killed 23 people in a racist attack on Hispanics.
TARGET | The United States is atypical in access to arms, says the senator:
‘What are we doing?’ The U.S. senator asks after a shooting at a Texas school
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, whose state witnessed the shooting of Sandy Hook Elementary School a decade ago, made an emotional call to his Senate colleagues on Tuesday after 14 more children were killed in a shooting. at school in Uvalde, Texas. He asked politicians why they are even in the Senate if they are not willing to work to solve what he calls an “existential” problem.
The latest shooting came days before the annual National Rifle Association (NRA) convention in Houston began.
Abbott and the two U.S. senators from Texas were among the elected Republican officials who were scheduled to speak at a Friday-sponsored NRA-led leadership forum.
In the years since Sandy Hook, the debate over arms control in Congress has increased and waned. Legislative efforts to change U.S. weapons policy in a significant way have consistently faced Republican blockades and the influence of outside groups such as the NRA.
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Sandy Hook’s father says families in Uvalde, Texas, will need community support
Jimmy Greene’s daughter, Ana, was killed in a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 when she was six years old. He says community support will be vital to the families of those killed in the Texas school shooting.