School Shooting
On Tuesday, May 24th, a gunman went on a shooting spree that killed 19 students and two teachers. Investigators are trying to piece together the details of the massacre, which lasted more than 40 minutes and concluded when the 18-year-old gunman was shot by a Border Patrol team.
The attacker opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which educates children aged seven to ten, before being shot dead by police. According to detectives, the 18-year-old suspect possessed a handgun, an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon, and high-capacity magazines. According to police, the shooting started at 11:32 a.m. on Tuesday, and it is believed that the gunman acted alone in this heinous crime.
According to a fourth-grader who survived the Uvalde mass shooting, the gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers, told a classroom of children that “it’s time to die.”
Before the rampage, the assailant reportedly shot his grandmother. She is currently being hospitalized for her injuries. Officials claimed the gunman was a local high school dropout with no criminal record and no known psychiatric problems. For his 18th birthday, he legally purchased two AR-15-style firearms and ammunition. Ramos’ grandfather stated on Wednesday that he had no idea he possessed guns. Rolando Reyes alleged, “If I had known, I would have reported him.”
There were many onlookers on the street across from the school who witnessed the shooter enter the school. It is reported that there were also several officers outside of the school who engaged with the shooter prior to him entering the school. There are several reports of onlookers screaming and begging the police to “Go in there! Go in there!” but the officers that were outside of the school did not enter the school building.
A father of a fourth-grader who was shot and killed in the school arrived on the scene shortly after the gunman entered the building. Javier Cazares saw the police not entering the building or doing anything to protect the children and engaged with onlookers in an effort to come up with a plan to stop the gunman before the children got hurt. Cazares said, “Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to. More could have been done. They were unprepared.”
Insights on this School Shooting…
Before entering the school, the shooter crashed his vehicle into a ditch near the school and began shooting at pedestrians. After opening fire on the sidewalk near the school, the shooter ran into the school.
This year alone, there have been 27 school shootings. Young school children practice what to do if a gunman enters their classroom on a regular basis. Along with fire drills, many schools conduct “shooter drills” in which teachers lock doors, turn off classroom lights, and instruct students to hide in closets, under desks, or alongside walls out of sight of the windows and doors. It has been less than 2 weeks since the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York which left ten people dead.
US President Joe Biden said “How many scores of little children who witnessed what happened see their friends die, as if they were in a battlefield, for God’s sake,” he remarked. “They’ll live with it for the rest of their lives,” when responding to the mass shooting.
In honor of the victims in Uvalde, he ordered that flags at the White House and other US federal facilities be flown at half-mast.
According to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the gunman, Salvador Ramos, abandoned his truck prior to actually entering the building and started firing gunshots “horrifically incomprehensibly.”
According to Erick Estrada of the Texas Department of Public Safety, a Uvalde school district police officer who was stationed at the elementary school saw Ramos emerge from the truck with a gun and wearing body armor.
Mr. Estrada said the officer “engaged” the assailant but was unable to stop him. Two more policemen from the Uvalde Police Department intervened to block Ramos but were unsuccessful and called for assistance.
Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles, two people who were killed, were both teachers at the school. According to the school district’s website, Mrs. Garcia is a mother of four who has been a teacher for 23 years. According to the same site, Ms. Mireles had been a teacher for 17 years, had a daughter in college, and enjoyed running and hiking.
By Thursday morning, seven 10-year-olds had been officially identified as dead by relatives. Parents waited late into Tuesday night at a municipal center to find out if their children had survived, with some providing DNA to assist officials in identifying victims. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Chris Olivarez, authorities have identified all of the victims, whose remains have been taken from the murder site, and notified their relatives.
More insights on this School Shooting…
The elementary school, which has a large Hispanic population, is located approximately 85 miles west of San Antonio.
According to the Associated Press, a US Border Patrol agent who was nearby when the shooting started went into the school and gunned down the assailant who was hidden behind a barricade.
The US Border Patrol is a federal agency that protects the country’s entrance points. Uvalde, which is fewer than 80 miles from the Mexican border, has a Border Patrol station. Two border officials were allegedly shot during an encounter with the shooter.
Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy pleaded with his colleagues to support gun control legislation on the Senate floor in Washington, DC on Tuesday.
He stated, “These kids weren’t unlucky. This only happens in this country. Nowhere else, nowhere else, do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day.”
Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz, however, dismissed the calls for gun regulations. According to him, curtailing the rights to gun ownership is a bad idea. “It doesn’t work with law-abiding folks. It is not effective. It does not prevent crime.”
The Uvalde Elementary School shooting is the deadliest shooting in the United States since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting which took place in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. 20 children and six adults were killed in that shooting.
