UVALDE, Texas, May 25 (Reuters) – A gunman kills 19 children and two teachers in the deadliest shooting of an American school for nearly a decade, prompting President Joe Biden to urge the North -Americans to confront the country’s arms lobby and pressure Congress to tighten arms laws.
Authorities say Salvador Ramos, 18, shot his grandmother, who survived Tuesday, before fleeing and crashing his car near Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing at least 21 people. people before she was killed, apparently shot by police.
Officers saw the gunman, dressed in body armor, coming out of the crashed vehicle with a rifle. They said he was acting alone; the reason was unclear.
Register now for FREE and unlimited access to Reuters.com
Sign up
In a televised speech, Biden, with his voice in a crescendo, said: “As a nation, we must ask ourselves when, in the name of God, we will face the arms lobby, when in the name of God we do what we all know it has to be done in our gut. “
Democrat Biden accused the gun lobby of blocking the enactment of tougher firearms security laws. He ordered the flags to be flown at half-mast every day until Saturday sunset in observation of the tragedy. Read more
“I’m fed up and tired of this. We have to act,” he said without going into details.
Mass shootings have often sparked public protests and called for stricter controls on arms sales and other gun controls common in other countries, but these measures have repeatedly failed in the face of strong Republican-led opposition.
The school welcomes second, third and fourth graders, which means students would have been between 7 and 10 years old.
“My heart is broken today,” School District Superintendent Hal Harrell told reporters at the end of the day, his voice trembling with emotion. “We are a small community and we need your prayers to make it happen.”
People are reacting outside the Ssgt Willie Civic Center in Leon, where students were transported from Robb Elementary School after a shooting in Uvalde, Texas, USA, on May 24, 2022. REUTERS / Marco Bello
Read more
The community, located in the Hill Country region of the state about 130 km west of San Antonio, has about 16,000 residents, nearly 80 percent of them Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census data.
Hours after the shooting, police had cordoned off the school with yellow tape. Police vehicles and emergency vehicles were scattered around the perimeter of the school grounds. The uniformed personnel were in small groups, some in camouflage carrying semi-automatic weapons.
MOST DEADLY SINCE 2012
The fury was the latest in a series of mass shootings that periodically rekindled a heated debate between proponents of tighter arms control and those who oppose any legislation that could compromise the law. of Americans to bear arms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Read more
It was the deadliest shooting at the school since a gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December 2012.
U.S. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, one of the main proponents of legislation to restrict gun proliferation, told reporters, “I don’t understand why people here think we’re powerless.”
“It’s no coincidence that we’re the deadliest nation in the world with high incomes and have the weakest gun laws. You know, guns flow in this country like water. And that’s why we have mass shooting after mass shooting.” , he said. dit. Read more
Firearms became the leading cause of death for American children and adolescents as of 2020, surpassing motor vehicle accidents, according to a University of Michigan research letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine last month.
Tuesday’s horrors were reflected on Robb Elementary School’s Facebook page, where posts earlier this week showed students’ usual activities: a trip to the zoo and a reminder of the date for a gifted and talented shop window. .
A note was released Tuesday at 11:43 a.m.: “Please know that Robb Elementary is currently blocked due to gunfire in the area. Students and staff are safe at the building”. A second post read: “There’s an active shooter at Robb Elementary. Law enforcement is in place.” Finally, a note was issued informing parents that they could meet their children at the civic center. Read more
Register now for FREE and unlimited access to Reuters.com
Sign up
Report by Marco Bello in Uvalde, Texas; Additional reports by Steve Gorman, Dan Whitcomb and Costas Pitas in Los Angeles, Maria Caspani and Tyler Clifford in New York, Daniel Trotta in San Diego, Katie Paul in San Francisco, Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California, and Caitlin Webber and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Howard Goller and Alistair Bell
Our standards: Thomson Reuters’ principles of trust.