UVALDE, Texas (AP) – President Joe Biden mourned the shattered Uvalde community on Sunday, weeping privately for three hours with the distressed families of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers killed by a gunman. Faced with the chants of “do something” when he left a church service, Biden promised, “We will.”
At Robb Elementary School, Biden visited a memorial of 21 white crosses, one for each of the murders, and First Lady Jill Biden added a bouquet of white flowers to those already in front of the school sign. . The couple then saw the individual altars erected in memory of each student, the first lady touching the photos of the children as they moved around the row.
After visiting the memorial, Biden attended Mass at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where members of several of the victims’ families are members, and one of the families attended.
Speaking directly to the children of the congregation, Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller tried to allay the fears of the young people, some of whom looked more or less the same age as the victims.
“You’ve seen the news, you’ve witnessed the tears of your parents, friends,” he said, encouraging them not to be afraid of life. “You are the best reminders for us that the lives of the little ones are important.”
When Biden left the church to meet privately with family members, a crowd of about 100 began singing “do something.” Biden replied, “We will,” as he got into his car. It was his only public comment for about seven hours on Uvalde.
Biden later tweeted that he hurts, prays and stands by the people of Uvalde. “And we are committed to turning that pain into action,” he said.
The visit to Uvalde was Biden’s second trip in as many weeks to comfort a losing community after a mass shooting. He traveled to Buffalo, New York, on May 17 to reunite with the families of the victims and condemn white supremacy after a gunman defending racist “replacement theory” killed 10 blacks in a supermarket.
Both the shootings and their aftermath put a new focus on the nation’s deep-rooted divisions and its inability to forge consensus on actions to reduce armed violence.
“The evil hit the Texas elementary classroom, the New York grocery store, too many places where innocent people have died,” Biden said Saturday in a graduation speech at the University of Delaware. “We have to stay strong. We need to be stronger. We can’t ban tragedy, I know, but we can make America safer. “
Biden also met with senior officials before the trip back home to Delaware. It was unclear whether the group included agents involved in the immediate response to the shooting.
Biden visited amid growing scrutiny of the police response. Officials revealed Friday that students and faculty repeatedly begged for help from 911 operators while a police commander told more than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway. Officials said the commander believed the suspect was barricaded inside an adjoining classroom and that there was no longer any active attack.
The revelation caused more pain and 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.
The Justice Department announced on Sunday that it will review the response of law enforcement and make its findings public.
“It’s easy to point the finger right now,” Ronnie Garza, Uvalde County Commissioner, told CBS’s “Face the Nation,” before adding, “Our community needs to focus on healing now. same “.
Mckinzie Hinojosa, whose cousin Eliahana Torres was killed on Tuesday, said she respected Biden’s decision to cry with the people of Uvalde.
“It’s more than mourning,” he said. “We want a change. We want action. It’s still something that happens over and over and over again. There is a mass shooting. It’s in the news. People are crying. Then it’s gone. Nobody cares. And then it happens again. And again. “
“If there’s anything, if I could tell Joe Biden, as he is, he only respects our community while he’s here, and I’m sure he will,” he added. “It simply came to our notice then. We have to do something about it. “
Authorities say the gunman 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.
Hours after the shooting, Biden made a passionate request for additional gun control legislation, asking, “When, in the name of God, will we face the gun lobby? Why are we willing to live with this carnage?” Why do we keep letting this happen? “
Over the years, Biden has been closely involved in the most notable achievements of the arms control movement, such as the 1994 assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, and his most troubling disappointments, including the lack of approval of new legislation after the 2012 Sandy massacre. Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
As president, Biden has tried to address armed violence through executive orders. He now faces few new options, but executive action could be the best the president can do, given Washington’s strong divisions over gun control legislation.
In Congress, a bipartisan group of senators spoke over the weekend to see if they could reach even a modest compromise on arms security legislation after a decade of largely failed efforts.
Encouraging state “red flag” laws to keep guns away from people with mental health issues and addressing school safety and mental health resources were on the table, said Sen. Chris Murphy, who leads the effort .
While there is not enough Republican support in Congress for broader proposals for popular gun security among the public, including a new assault weapons ban or universal background checks on gun purchases, Murphy, D-Conn., Told ABC’s “This Week” that these other ideas are “not insignificant.”
The group will meet again next week with a 10-day deadline to reach an agreement.
“There are more Republicans interested in talking about finding a way forward this time than I’ve ever seen since Sandy Hook,” said Murphy, who represented the Newtown area as a congressman at the time of the Sandy Hook shooting. . “And while in the end I may end up having a broken heart, I’m on the table in a more meaningful way right now with Republicans and Democrats than ever before.”
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AP Congress correspondent Lisa Mascaro and Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington and AP video journalist Robert Bumsted in Uvalde, Texas, contributed to this report.
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