At least 19 children and two teachers were killed after a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, according to multiple reports.
Police in Uvalde responded to reports of a shooting at Robb Elementary School, which educates students between second and fourth grades, on Tuesday afternoon. Uvalde is about 80 miles west of San Antonio, sitting between the metropolitan area and the US border with Mexico. It has a large Mexican American population.
The shooter, an 18-year-old male, was killed by responding officers, Texas governor Greg Abbott said during a press conference. Texas State Police identified the gunman as Salvador Ramos.
The shooter also shot his grandmother before he went to the school, the governor said. The Texas Tribune reported she was still alive after being airlifted to an area hospital.
“He shot and killed, horrifically, incomprehensibly,” Abbott said at the briefing.
One teacher killed in the attack was identified by her family as Eva Mireles, who taught fourth grade at Robb Elementary. Her aunt, Lydia Martinez Delgado, told The New York Times Mireles died while trying to protect her students.
She was a mother in her early 40s and was “very loved”, Delgado told the paper. “She was the fun of the party.”
Pete Arredondo, the chief of police for Ulvalde’s school district, said officers were still combing through the scene, adding that authorities were not looking for any other individuals or suspects in the case.
It is the nation’s deadliest school massacre since the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack in 2012, and the second-deadliest shooting at a from kindergarten to 12th grade campus in modern US history.
Hal Harrell, the superintendent of Ulvalde’s school district, said the community was struggling with a “tragic and senseless event”. The district immediately ended the school year and canceled all future events and activities for students.
“My heart is broken today,” Harrell said during a press conference. “We’re a small community, and we will need your prayers to get through this.”
A woman whose niece attends Robb Elementary said she was in “disbelief” after the tragedy, saying authorities had asked parents and family members to provide descriptions of what their children were wearing when they went to school Tuesday morning. Her niece was missing after the attack.
“They would ask you for a picture, a description of what they were wearing this morning … it was hard,” the woman told WFAA, Dallas’ ABC affiliate. “I’m just praying that my little one is okay. I’m going to keep telling myself that she is okay.”
The nation’s top Democrats called for urgent action on gun control after the massacre, although doing so would be difficult in a 50-50 Senate. President Joe Biden ordered flags at the White House and federal buildings to be flown at half-staff for the victims through Saturday.
“Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone?,” the president said in a speech from the White House Tuesday evening. “It’s time to act. It’s time for those who obstruct or delay or block commonsense gun laws, to let you know: We will not forget. We can do so much more, we have to do more.”
Biden added that he was “sick and tired” of lawmakers’ inaction on the issue, asking “when in God’s name are we gonna stand up to the gun lobby?”
“Our hearts keep getting broken,” vice president Kamala Harris said earlier in the day. “Enough is enough. As a nation, we have to have the courage to take action and understand the nexus between what makes for reasonable and sensible public policy to ensure something like this never happens again.”
Many Republicans rebutted those calls, including Texas senator Ted Cruz, who advocated instead for more armed law enforcement on school campuses.
“You know, inevitably, when there’s a murderer of this kind, you see politicians try to politicise it, you see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” Cruz said Tuesday. “That doesn’t work. It’s not effective. It doesn’t prevent crime.”
Texas state senator Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat who represents the area, said he plans to provide resources including grief counselors to Uvalde, which he described as a small town.
“Very hardworking community, rural in nature,” Gutierrez told HuffPost. “It’s a beautiful little town, small-town Texas. I just can’t imagine ... I am in shock for those parents and those families and the entire community. My heart goes out to them.”