UVALDE, Texas (AP) – Carriers wore white T-shirts and gloves. The deserted brown church with the high bell tower was filled to overflowing. The casket contained a 10-year-old girl who loved violet.
On Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of mourners attended the funeral mass of Amerie Jo Garza, a smiling fourth-grader who was murdered a week ago when 18-year-old Salvador Ramos broke into her elementary school. Uvalde, Texas and opened fire on her. classroom. Amerie’s funeral was the first since the massacre, with Maite Rodriguez’s funeral scheduled for Tuesday at a funeral home in Uvalde.
Nineteen more funerals are expected over the next two and a half weeks for the 19 children and two teachers who were killed in that classroom on May 24th.
Sorrowful Erika Santiago, her husband, and their two children wore purple shirts adorned with images of the victims at Amerie’s funeral. He described Amerie as “a nice girl who smiled a lot” and was “so humble and charismatic but full of life.”
Santiago said his 10-year-old son, Adriel, was horrified when the news first showed images of murdered people and recognized his friends Amerie and Maite.
“He told me he didn’t want to go to school for fear it might happen,” Santiago said. “He said, ‘Mom, I’m not sure.'”
The visit of one of the teachers, Irma Garcia, 48, was also on Tuesday, along with visits for children Nevaeh Bravo and Jose Flores Jr.
Vincent Salazar’s 11-year-old daughter, Layla, has the last of the scheduled services: her visit is on June 15 with the next day’s funeral. Salazar said the family probably won’t see Layla’s body until shortly before the visit.
“I understand there were other children as well, but we are waiting to get her back,” Salazar said. “That’s all we focus on.”
Uvalde County Justice of the Peace Eulalio “Lalo” Diaz Jr. said the bodies of the 21 victims were first sent to the San Antonio coroner’s office for autopsies. to say it is a rule for a serious crime. At that time, as there was not enough space in the two funeral homes in Uvalde, many bodies were sent to funeral homes outside the city until the services were close. Uvalde Funeral Homes is working with families to find out when they can see their loved ones, he said.
“It’s mostly because of the number of victims,” Diaz said, asking, “Where do you store so many people?”
Diaz said the autopsies are over. He declined to discuss the preliminary results and said the final reports would take three to four months.
Vincent Salazar said he and his family will go to as many visits as they can to pay tribute to the other victims and their families.
“We don’t necessarily go to funerals because we’re still taking care of things hour by hour, day by day, here,” Salazar said. “We have so many things going on with ours. You have to set everything up: obituaries, death certificates, funeral arrangements.
“That’s all we’re focused on right now: her, getting her back and being able to rest,” Salazar said of Layla. “This is.”
Investigators are still searching for answers about how police responded to the shooting, and the U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing law enforcement actions.
The blame for the unbearable delay in killing the gunman, even when outside parents begged police to hurry up and the children panicked 911 from inside, was put at the head of the police. school district Pete Arredondo after the state police director said Arredondo made the “wrong decision” not to enter the classroom, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and the children were not at risk.
Steven McCraw, head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Friday that after following the gunman into the building, officers waited more than an hour to enter the classroom. The revelation raised new questions about whether lives were lost because officers failed to act more quickly to stop the gunman, who was eventually killed by Border Patrol tactical officers.
State police said Tuesday that the teacher who at one point opened an outside school door had closed it before the gunman used it to enter.
However, the door was not closed, police said. Authorities had initially said Ramos entered through the door she had opened.
Instead, investigators said the unidentified teacher closed the door when she noticed a shooter on campus and ran to pick up her phone and call 911. said Travis Considine, Texas Department of Communications Director. Public Security. Investigators are investigating why the door was not closed.
Jacob Albarado, an off-duty Border Patrol officer who rushed to school with a shotgun lent to his barber, said Tuesday he was chaotic when he arrived in search of his daughter and wife. Both were physically injured in the attack, he said.
“For me, I think everyone was doing the best they could under the circumstances,” he told NBC’s “Today Show.” “I think everyone there was doing everything in their power.”
Authorities say Ramos legally bought two weapons shortly before the school attack: an AR-style rifle on May 17 and a second rifle on May 20. He had just turned 18, and was allowed to buy weapons under federal law.
President Joe Biden’s long-planned meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday went to gun control after what happened in Uvalde and a week earlier in Buffalo, New York, where 10 blacks were killed. by a shooter who advocated racist “substitution theory.” ”
Ardern won approval of arms control measures after a white supremacist killed 51 Muslim worshipers at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019. Less than a month later, all but one of the country’s 120 lawmakers voted in favor. in favor of banning military-style semi-automatic weapons.
Biden told reporters that “he will meet with Congress on guns, I promise,” but the White House has acknowledged that winning new gun legislation will mean a rise in a uniformly divided Congress.
___
Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.
___
Learn more about school shooting in Uvalde, Texas: