？
Close
Texas elementary school shooting: Live from Uvalde, Texas
A teenage gunman barricaded himself inside a classroom before murdering at least 19 children and two teachers at a Texas primary school on 24 May, marking the deadliest school shooting in the decade after the Sandy Hook massacre.
All of the victims were in the same fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, roughly 80 miles west of San Antonio.
The gunman, who has been named as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was reportedly shot dead by an officer who arrived on the scene.
The gunman had no known criminal history or history of mental illness and “no meaningful forwarning of his crime” other than posting “I’m going to shoot my grandmother” and “I’m going to shoot an elementary school” on Facebook, Governor Greg Abbott reported at a press briefing on Wednesday. A spokesperson for Meta said Ramos shared the plans in direct messages, not public posts.
At least 12 children who were killed in the attack have been named by their families, including eight-year-old Uziyah Garcia and Eliahana “Elijah” Cruz Torres, Jailah Silguero, Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, Amerie Jo Garza, Makenna Lee Elrod, Xavier Javier Lopez, Jose Flores, Navaeh Brown, Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, Alithia Ramirez and Ellie Lugo, all aged 10.
Two of the victims were Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia, both teachers at the school.
Recommended Salvador Ramos: Everything we know about Texas school mass shooter Texas school shooting: Everything we know so far Texas school shooting: Who are the victims? In the US, a foetus is sacred – but children in classrooms come second to guns. Why?
Key points Beto O’Rourke confronts Texas officials during press conference Gunman said ‘I’m going to shoot’ on Facebook before attack, governor says Officials place blame on state of mental health crisis Officials, businesses create memorial funds for victims and families Gunman’s grandfather describes troubled teen and hidden guns
Show latest update 1653532252 How Texas began a warzone
During a news conference on Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott argued that gun control doesn’t work, pointing to the examples of killings in big cities in California, Illinois, and New York.
But Texas, with some of the most lenient gun laws in the nation, is actually less safe than all these places, data shows.
The state lets most legal adults buy and carry rifles and guns after the ages of 18 and 21, respectively, without training or a license, and has a virtually equal gun death rate to Illinois, according to CDC data. Gun homicides rates per capita in Texas are nearly double those in California and nearly triple those in New York.
Two of the four deadliest school shootings in the last decade also took place in Texas, as have a number of other shocking mass killings in recent years, including massacres at a military base in Fort Hood, a church in Sutherland Springs, and a Walmart in El Paso.
Here’s an in-depth look Governor Abbott’s record on guns and how it has impacted safety in the state.
Texas Governor blames anything but guns for Uvalde shooting Texas has some of most lenient gun laws in country
Josh Marcus 26 May 2022 03:30
1653529552 Did police fail to stop Uvalde gunman from entering school?
One of the cornerstones of the conservative response to the Uvalde shooting has been the argument that more, better-armed law enforcement personnel in schools is the way to end America’s unique problem of persistent school shootings.
One factor that complicates this picture is that there already were police on the grounds of the school at the time of the shooting, though Texas officials have been inconsistent to downright opaque about whether they did enough to stop the shooter.
According to Steve McCraw, Texas’s director of public safety, about “forty minutes” to “an hour” elapsed between when Salvador Ramos got to Robb Elementary School and when he was killed by law enforcement.
“But I don’t want to give you a particular timeline,” the official said on Wednesday at a news conference.
Mr McCraw when on to explain how a school police officer confronted the teen as he headed towards classrooms, but was apparently unable to stop the boy and “followed him right in immediately.”
Another police official, Department of Public Safety Sergeant Erick Estrada has said in various media interviews Ramos also encountered multiple officers from the Uvalde Police Department before heading inside. “They weren’t able to stop him there, so they did ask for assistance,” Mr Estrada told CNN.
Other Texas officials have said officers heard shooting already once they arrived on the scene, seeming to suggest a completely different timeline.
Josh Marcus 26 May 2022 02:45
1653527752 Salvador Ramos: Everything we know about Texas school mass shooter
More details are emerging about Salvador Ramos, the 18-year-old student who killed 21 people at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday.
Here’s everything we know about the gunman, based on reporting from Independent team.
Salvador Ramos: Everything we know about 18-year-old Texas school mass shooter Eighteen-year-old Uvalde high school student reportedly shot his grandmother before driving to Robb Elementary School
Josh Marcus 26 May 2022 02:15
1653526852 Uvalde gunman texted acquaintance before shooting
The 18-year-old who shot and killed 21 people at a Texas high school texted a 15-year-old German girl he met online that he was about to “shoot up a elementary school,” The New York Times reports.
“Maybe I could’ve changed the outcome,” the girl, who asked only to be identified by her nickname Cece, told the Times. “I just could never guess that he’d actually do this.”
The two met on Yubo, an app that allows strangers to watch each other’s livestream videos.
Youth from California to Greece say they had conversations with Ramos through the service.
Josh Marcus 26 May 2022 02:00
1653525652 WATCH: Salvador Ramos’s grandfather describes troubled teen
The grandfather of the Texas school shooter accused of killing 19 children and two teachers in the town of Uvalde says he didn’t know Salvador Ramos had high-powered assault rifles at home.
“I didn’t know he had weapons,” Rolando Reyes told ABC News. “If I’d have known, I would have reported it.”
Ramos, 18, shot his 66-year-old grandmother in the head before stealing the family’s car and heading to Robb Elementary School.
“It still hasn’t sunk in,“ Mr Reyes said.
Watch more of his comments below.
？
Grandfather of Texas shooter describes teen's hidden guns
Josh Marcus 26 May 2022 01:40
1653524452 Another grim anniversary: the murder of George Floyd
The shooting in Uvalde came just a day before the two-year anniversary of another stunning moment of violence in America: the murder of George Floyd by police on 25 May, 2020.
“As we grieve the children of Uvalde today, we should take time to recognize that two years have passed since the murder of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer,” former president Barack Obama wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “His killing stays with us all to this day, especially those who loved him.”
Josh Marcus 26 May 2022 01:20
1653523157 Mum of Texas gunman Salvador Ramos breaks silence and says son ‘wasn’t a violent person’
The mother of Texas gunman Salvador Ramos has broken her silence following the school attack that killed 19 students and two teachers and says that her son “wasn’t a violent person.”
Adriana Reyes told DailyMail.com that she was “surprised” the 18-year-old had gone on a rampage and massacred 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
Ms Reyes, 39, spoke out from the hospital bedside of 66-year-old Celia Gonzalez, who was shot in the face by her grandson before he committed one of the deadliest school shootings in American history.
“My son wasn’t a violent person. I’m surprised by what he did,” she told the news outlet from a San Antonio hospital.
Graeme Massie has the details.
Josh Marcus 26 May 2022 00:59
1653521452 Texas teen arrested at school with pistol and toy AR-15 day after Uvalde shooting
Texas police arrested a boy in posession of an AK-47-style pistol and a toy AR-15-style rifle at school on Wednesday, the day after a mass shooting in the state left 21 dead at an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde.
Police were called on Wednesday morning in the town of Richardson, a Dallas suburb, on reports that a male was seen walking towards Berkner High School holding what looked like a rifle.
“Within minutes of the call being dispatched, numerous police officers from various units within the Richardson Police Department responded to Berkner High School and initiated a search and investigation into this incident,” Richardson Police said in a statement on Facebook.
The teen, whose identity has not been released due to his age, was located inside the school, and his car contained “what appeared to be an AK-47 style pistol and a replica AR-15 style Orbeez rifle.”
The youth was charged with unlawful carrying weapons in a weapon-free school zone, a state felony.
Josh Marcus is following this breaking story.
Texas teen arrested at school with pistol and toy AR-15 day after Uvalde shooting Boy was seen earlier with guns, witness said
Josh Marcus 26 May 2022 00:30
1653520552 Even after yet another mass shooting, Democrats are still powerless
Think the Democrats are going to usher in a new wave of gun reforms after the Tuesday shooting in Uvalde?
That doesn’t look likely according to The Independent’s Washington DC correspondent Eric Garcia.
He writes:
Senator Chuck Schumer plans to host a vote on legislation on gun background checks, but we know how this will unfold: every Democrat will vote for it – perhaps minus Senators Joe Manchin and/or Kyrsten Sinema – and every Republican will oppose it. And if all 50 Democrats support it, then Mr Manchin and Ms Sinema will obstruct any change to the filibuster to let the legislation pass with 50 votes plus Kamala Harris’s tie-breaker, meaning the bill will effectively die.
Read his full column for our Voices section.
Even after yet another mass shooting, Democrats are still powerless The US’s governing party simply does not have the numbers to pass policies that remain popular with most of the American public
Josh Marcus 26 May 2022 00:15
1653519652 Texas massacre underscores a grim statistic: gun violence is the leading cause of death among American children
The massacre of 19 young children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas has underscored the growing public health threat from gun violence among American children.
In 2020, firearm-related injuries surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death among US children and adolescents, according to recent analysis from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Between 2019 and 2020, the relative increase of firearm-related deaths among children – including homicide, suicide and unintentional shootings – was 29.5 per cent, more than twice as high as the increase among the general population. That spike reflects 4,368 Americans under the age of 19 who died from gun violence in 2020.
In 2020, the most recent year for which such data is available, there were 19,384 gun homicides in the US, the most since at least 1968, and another 24,000 people killed themselves with firearms, bringing the total number of gun-related deaths to more than 45,000.
Alex Woodward has the details.
Gun violence is the leading cause of death among American children Health officials warn that gun violence remains a ‘serious public health threat that must be addressed’
Josh Marcus 26 May 2022 00:00
Newer 1 / 11 Older