America: Gunman Kills 21 person, Including 19 Children, at Texas School
At least 19 children and two teachers were shot and killed by an 18-year-old gunman at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday. It was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. Below is the latest on this developing story.
What We Know
Around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, a gunman opened fire inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde — a small working-class, majority-Latino town of about 15,200 residents that is 80 miles west of San Antonio, about halfway between the city and the U.S.-Mexico border.
The gunman, identified as 18-year-old Salvador Romas, entered the school where he “shot and killed horrifically, incomprehensibly,” Governor Greg Abbott said at a news conference. The rampage ended when the gunman was shot and killed during a confrontation with law enforcement responding to shooting, which took place two days before the end of the school year. Police officials have confirmed that at least 19 children and two teachers were killed. It’s not yet clear how many people were injured.
The Attack
The full picture of what happened was still becoming clear as of early Wednesday morning. A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety told our reporters on Tuesday that the gunman first shot and critically wounded his grandmother at a nearby residence in Uvalde, then drove a pick-up truck to Robb Elementary, where nearly 600 second, third, and fourth-graders attended school.
After driving the truck through a barrier and into a ditch outside the school, the lone gunman, who the DPS spokesperson said was wearing body armor and was armed with at least one firearm, was somehow able to enter the building, then began shooting people inside. Family members of children who survived the shooting told the Washington Post that one of the places where the gunman opened fire was inside a fourth-grade classroom.
According to the DPS spokesperson, two local police officers responding to a 911 call about the incident with the truck exchanged fire with the gunman and both were shot. At some point the gunman barricaded himself inside the school. According to a law enforcement source who spoke with the Associated Press, “One Border Patrol agent who was working nearby when the shooting began rushed into the school without waiting for backup and shot and killed the gunman, who was behind a barricade.” The agent was wounded, but not seriously.
There is a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol station in Uvalde, and about 80 CBP agents were among the first to respond to the shooting. Some reportedly placed themselves between the shooter and schoolchildren.
A law enforcement source told the New York Times later Tuesday that officials were still investigating whether or not the gunman, who lived and worked nearby and had attended high school in the town, specifically targeted the school.
Biden: “Why do we keep letting this happen?
In an emotional address on Tuesday night, President Joe Biden asked a question that is undoubtedly once again on many horrified Americans’ minds: “Why do we keep letting this happen?” He then made an impassioned call for more gun control. “Where in God’s name is our backbone? As a nation, when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? It’s time to turn this pain into action. For every parent, for every citizen of this country. We have to make it clear to every elected official in this country: It’s time to act.”
“We can’t and won’t prevent every tragedy, but we know [common-sense gun laws] work and have positive impact,” he said.
“What in God’s name do you need assault weapon for except to kill someone? Deer aren’t running through the forest with Kevlar vests on, for God’s sake. It’s just sick,” he continued. “I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.”
Drawing on personal experience, Biden spoke of the loss suffered by the parents of those killed in the attack, explaining that losing a child “is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. There’s a hollowness in your chest. You feel like you’re being sucked into it.”
“Our prayer tonight is [for] those parents, lying in bed and trying to figure out, ‘Will I be able to sleep again? What do I say to my other children? What happens tomorrow?’” he added.
The Victims
Though local officials have yet to confirm the identities the at least 21 people who were killed in the rampage, family members have begun to publicly identify the victims.
One of the adults killed in the rampage was Eva Mireles, 44, a fourth grade teacher at the school and mother, according to her family.
Some of the children killed in the attack have been publicly identified by family members as well.
Jose Flores, 10
Uziyah Garcia, 9
Amerie Jo Garza, 10
Xavier Javier Lopez, 10
Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10
Rogelio Torres, 10
Officials remained tight-lipped during an evening press conference, telling reporters they would not release information to the public until they first briefed family members, who were gathering at the town’s civic center to await news from authorities.
Some families weren’t able to find out what had happened to their loved ones until late Tuesday.
Dallas News reporter Dianne Solis witnessed one woman who arrived at the center saying, “It was her,” before collapsing into the arms of a friend. Jesse Rodriguez told Solis he was trying to learn what happened to his daughter. “We just have to find her,” he said. Earlier at the school, another father choked with emotion when talking about his daughter.
It’s not fully clear how many people were injured. Uvalde Memorial Hospital said that it had received 11 children and three adults following the attack. Two of the children, a boy and girl, had already died by the time they arrived. At least five of the children were transferred to other hospitals, while four children were discharged.
The University Health hospital in San Antonio said it had received four victims, including a ten-year-old girl and a 66-year-old woman who remained in critical condition of Tuesday night. (A Texas Department of Public Safety official told CNN that the gunman’s grandmother, who he apparently shot prior to the rampage, remained in critical condition.) Another ten-year-old girl was listed as in good condition, and a nine-year-old girl was listed in fair condition.
Governor Abbott said Tuesday that two state law-enforcement officers were shot, but were not seriously injured. A U.S. Customs and Border Protect agent who responded to the attack was shot in the head and leg, but did not sustain a life-threatening injuries.
Superintendent Hal Harrell announced the rest of the school year has been canceled and ended an evening press conference with a tearful plea: “We’re a small community. We’ll need your prayers to get through this.”
The Gunman
Little is yet known about the gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, who was shot and killed by officers responding to the shooting.
Per the Washington Post, the gunman “bought the weapon used in the attack immediately after his 18th birthday, which was May 16, according to a person briefed on the investigation’s early findings.” According to CNN, the gunman apparently posted a photo of two AR-15-style assault rifles to his Instagram account three days prior to the attack.
The deadliest school shooting in the U.S. since Sandy Hook
Tuesday’s attack was the deadliest mass shooting in the country yet this year, surpassing the ten people killed at a Buffalo supermarket ten days prior during a terrorist attack by a self-proclaimed white supremacist. It was also at least the 212th mass shooting this year in the U.S. in which four or more people were killed or injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The attack was the deadliest grade school shooting in America since the horrifying 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut which killed 28 people, including 21 children between the ages of six and seven. In 2018, 17 people were killed in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida. A few months later, ten people were killed during a shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, near Houston — which had been the deadliest school shooting in the state history until Tuesday. In 1999, 13 people were killed during a mass shooting at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.
Tuesday’s shooting in Uvalde was also at least the 30th shooting at a U.S. K-12 school this year, and at least the 39th shooting when also counting shootings this year at colleges and universities, according to CNN.
In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s shooting, calls for meaningful gun-control efforts reverberated throughout the country. On the Senate floor, Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, who pushed for reform after the Sandy Hook shooting in his state in 2012, gave an impassioned speech: “I am here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees to beg my colleagues: Find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely.”
According to Everytown for Gun Safety research, Tuesday’s attack was the 31st mass shooting in Texas that has killed or injured at least four people since the organization began tracking shooting data in 2009. That total now leads the nation, followed by California, where there have been 30. Tuesday’s attack was one of four mass shootings in Texas that have claimed at least 20 lives since 1991, and the deadliest since 2019, when a racist gunman killed 23 people during an attack on an El Paso Walmart.
