Gunman kills at least 19 children at Texas elementary school

Hrs following the attack, family members were nevertheless awaiting word on their young children.

Outdoors the city civic center, exactly where people ended up advised to gather, the silence was damaged consistently by screams and wailing. “No! Please, no!” a person gentleman yelled as he embraced an additional guy.

“My coronary heart is broken these days,” said Hal Harrell, the university district superintendent, saying that all college functions have been canceled for the time becoming. “We’re a little neighborhood, and we’re likely to want your prayers to get by means of this.”

The assault also came just 10 days soon after a lethal, racist rampage at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store that added to a yearslong collection of mass killings at church buildings, faculties and shops. And the prospective buyers for any reform of the nation’s gun regulations appeared as dim, if not dimmer, than in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook fatalities.

But President Joe Biden appeared ready for a struggle, calling for new gun limitations in an tackle to the country hrs immediately after the assault.

“As a nation we have to check with, when in God’s identify are we going to stand up to the gun foyer? When in God’s name are we heading to do what has to be performed?” Biden asked. “Why are we keen to are living with this carnage?”

Numerous of the wounded had been rushed to Uvalde Memorial Hospital, the place team customers in scrubs and devastated victims’ relatives could be observed weeping as they walked out of the sophisticated.

Officers did not immediately expose a motive, but they determined the assailant as Salvador Ramos, a resident of the community about 85 miles (135 kilometers) west of San Antonio. Regulation enforcement officers explained he acted by yourself.

Ramos had hinted on social media that an attack could be coming, in accordance to point out Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who claimed he experienced been briefed by condition law enforcement. He observed that the gunman “suggested the children need to enjoy out.”

Prior to heading to the faculty, Ramon killed his grandmother with two army-style rifles he bought on his birthday, Gutierrez explained.

“That was the 1st point he did on his 18th birthday,” he claimed.

The attack started about 11:30 a.m., when the gunman crashed his car or truck exterior the university and ran into the building, according to Travis Considine, a spokesman for the Texas Division of Community Basic safety. A resident who listened to the crash named 911, and two area police officers exchanged gunfire with the shooter.

The two officers have been shot, though it was not instantly very clear the place on the campus that confrontation happened, or how a great deal time elapsed in advance of much more authorities arrived on the scene.

Meanwhile, teams of Border Patrol agents raced to the school, which include 10 to 15 customers of a SWAT-like tactical and counter-terrorism device, explained Jason Owens, a leading regional official with the Border Patrol.

1 Border Patrol agent who was doing the job nearby when the taking pictures commenced rushed into the faculty without having waiting around for backup and shot and killed the gunman, who was powering a barricade, in accordance to a legislation enforcement official talking on issue of anonymity due to the fact he was not authorized to discuss about it.

The agent was wounded but able to wander out of the school, the law enforcement resource said.

Owens confirmed that an agent experienced minor accidents, but would not offer particulars of that confrontation.

He said some space agents have youngsters at Robb Elementary.

“We have Border Patrol little ones that go to this school. It strike home for all people,” he mentioned.

It was not straight away very clear how lots of people today have been wounded, but Uvalde Police Chief Pete Arredondo explained there were “several accidents.” Earlier, Uvalde Memorial Hospital reported 13 young children had been taken there. One more medical center claimed a 66-yr-old female was in vital situation.

Robb Elementary University has an enrollment of just less than 600 learners, and Arredondo claimed it serves learners in the next, third and fourth grade. He did not provide ages of the small children who were being shot. This was the school’s very last week of classes in advance of summer time break.

Uvalde, home to about 16,000 persons, is about 75 miles (120 kilometers) from the border with Mexico. Robb Elementary is in a primarily household neighborhood of modest houses.

The tragedy in Uvalde was the deadliest college taking pictures in Texas history, and it included to a grim tally in the state, which has been the internet site of some of the deadliest shootings in the U.S. in excess of the earlier five several years.

In 2018, a gunman fatally shot 10 folks at Santa Fe High University in the Houston place. A calendar year right before that, a gunman at a Texas church killed much more than two dozen people in the course of a Sunday support in the tiny city of Sutherland Springs. In 2019, a further gunman at a Walmart in El Paso killed 23 people today in a racist attack.

The taking pictures came days ahead of the Countrywide Rifle Association yearly convention was set to commence in Houston. Abbott and each of Texas’ U.S. senators were being among the elected Republican officials who were being the scheduled speakers at a Friday leadership discussion board sponsored by the NRA’s lobbying arm.

In the yrs considering the fact that Sandy Hook, the gun manage debate in Congress has waxed and waned. Endeavours by lawmakers to alter U.S. gun policies in any substantial way have constantly faced roadblocks from Republicans and the affect of exterior teams this sort of as the NRA.

A year just after Sandy Hook, Sens. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, and Patrick J. Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, negotiated a bipartisan proposal to develop the nation’s background verify procedure. But the evaluate unsuccessful in a Senate vote, without having plenty of assistance to very clear a 60-vote filibuster hurdle.

Then-President Barack Obama, who had manufactured gun control central to his administration’s plans following the Newtown taking pictures, known as Congress’ failure to act “a really shameful day for Washington.”

Past calendar year, the Household handed two costs to develop track record checks on firearms purchases. Just one bill would have closed a loophole for non-public and on-line gross sales. The other would have extended the track record look at review period. Each languished in the 50-50 Senate, where by Democrats require at least 10 Republican votes to conquer objections from a filibuster.