UVALDE, Texas (AP) – Days after a local man entered an elementary school and killed 19 children and two teachers before officers managed to kill him, signs of local pain, solidarity and pride are everywhere in Uvalde.
Many wear a garnet, the color of the school district of Uvalde. And light blue ribbons adorn the giant oaks that provide shade in the city’s central square, where the wicked come to lay flowers around a fountain and write messages on wooden crosses bearing the names of the victims. In front of a daycare center on one of the city’s main streets, there are 21 empty wooden chairs.
Everyone in the predominantly Latin city of about 16,000 people seems to know someone whose life has been turned upside down by the loss of a family member or close friend in the attack on Robb Elementary School, which was one of the deadliest in this type.
Joe Ruiz, pastor of Templo Cristiano, said a teacher who is a friend of his wife, herself a former Uvalde teacher, better summed up the mood of the community by saying that people have “called everything “he has been able to and now he is just tired and needs to rest.
Police have been heavily criticized for waiting more than 45 minutes to confront 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos in adjoining classrooms where he unleashed carnage.
As the investigation into the attack continues, including Ramos’ motives for carrying it out, some neighbors have expressed outrage at police. Among them is carpenter Juan Carranza, 24, who said he saw the attack unfold from the other side of the school street. The next day, he called the cowardly agents.
Steven McCraw, who heads the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Friday that school district police chief Pete Arredondo made the “wrong decision” to wait so long before sending officers to classrooms. closed. He said Arredondo, who was in charge of law enforcement response during the siege, believed Ramos was barricaded inside the two adjoining classrooms and that the children were no longer in danger. Arredondo, who graduated from Uvalde High School and was recently elected to City Council, has not spoken publicly since McCraw criticized his decision-making, and his home now has a police guard .
The Oasis Outback, where Ramos bought his weapons, has remained open and his barbecue restaurant did its usual business on Friday night. The gun shop at the back of its sporting goods section was temporarily closed out of respect for the families of the victims, according to a poster posted.
An Oasis employee who declined to give her full name said the store has received angry calls blaming her for the attack, but that the phone numbers of the people who called were not from the area.
Support for gun rights is strong in Uvalde, which is located about halfway between San Antonio and the border town of Del Rio. But some parents and relatives of the victims are calling for a change.
“I don’t know how people can sell this kind of weapon to an 18-year-old boy. What will he use it for but this purpose?” said Syria Arizmendi, a fifth-grader whose niece, Eliahna Garcia, was killed. He spoke in his dining room shortly before Eliahna’s great-grandparents, also from Uvalde, arrived.
Javier Carranza, a 43-year-old gun owner and Army veteran whose daughter Jacklyn was killed, said it was “a little ridiculous” to sell that firepower to an 18-year-old. better background checks are needed.
Uvalde is in the middle of flat fields of cabbage, onions, carrots, corn and peppers, but mechanized agriculture replaced many jobs. Building materials companies are among its most coveted employers.
The city is home to a Border Patrol station that operates a highway checkpoint and oversees freight trains in what has suddenly become one of the busiest corridors for illegal crossings. A mass camp of Haitian migrants that arose under a bridge in Del Rio last year was news around the world.
Many residents can trace the presence of their family in Uvalde through three or four generations, creating a cherished sense of community. On a Friday night each month, the shops remain open until late and the food vendors occupy the central square in front of a neoclassical court.
“Uvalde Strong” messages adorn the shop windows, t-shirts and lawn signs. Sidewalks and sidewalks are less frequent the further away from the main square, with roosters walking down a cracked pavement near Robb Elementary School.
Ruiz, the pastor of the Templo Crisitano whose children and grandchildren live in Uvalde, asks the new parishioners about their ancestry to get to know them better.
Before Tuesday, the occasional traffic deaths were the biggest tragedies Uvalde suffered.
“We’ve had people killed, but not on a massive scale like this,” said Tony Gruber, pastor of Baptist Temple Church.
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For more AP coverage of the Uvalde school shooting: