The first testimonies of surviving children of the massacre at the school in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed the children. 19 students and two teachers emerge this Saturday crudely exhibiting the horror experienced.
Meanwhile, several dozen people gathered in the central square of this town in the southern United States, which has become place of homage to the victims.
“It is important to be here, to offer condolences to the community,” says Rosie Varela, 53, who traveled an hour from the Texas city of Del Río, with her husband and her teenage son.
“We have to help these children to get out of this trauma, out of this pain,” said Humberto Renovato, 33, who was born on his side. and grew in Uvalde.
You are all going to die
The police admitted the Friday he took a “wrong decision” by delaying his admission to the educational center after being alerted on Tuesday of the shooting.
Indeed, it took nearly an hour to put an end to the massacre, despite several calls from children asking for intervention. The 19 agents who were at the scene were waiting for the arrival of a specialized unit.
Meanwhile, inside the school, a group of students was locked in a classroom with the shooter, Salvador Ramos, from just 18 years old and equipped with a semi-automatic rifle and tactical vest.
After entering the classroom, Ramos closed the door. the door and went He told the children: “You are all going to die,” before opening fire, he said. a survivor, Samuel Salinas, 10, told ABC channel.
“I think he was targeting me,” he confessed the boy, but a chair between him and the shooter blocked the shot. the bullet.
He shot the bullet. to the ground covered in blood to play dead.
Keep calm
Miah Cerrillo, 11, did the same thing to escape the attention of Salvador Ramos. The girl covered herself She blasted her with the blood of a classmate, whose body was next to her, she told CNN in off-camera testimony. s to say “good night.”
Another student, Daniel, told told The Washington Post that while the victims waited for the police to come to their rescue, no one screamed.
“I was scared and stressed because the bullets almost hit me,” he said.
His teacher, who turned out to be wounded, she whispered to them. to “stay calm” and “stay still.”
A girl, also shot, had politely asked her teacher to call the police, saying that she was “bleeding a lot”, reported Daniel, who can no longer sleep alone and has nightmares.
The surviving children “are traumatized and will have to live with it all their lives,” he stressed. his mother, Briana Ruiz.
Samuel Salinas also said he has nightmares in which he sees the shooter. The thought of going back to school, or even seeing classmates again, is still terrifying. that he wanted to “stay home” and “rest”.
Biden on Sunday
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, and his wife Jill will visit Uvalde on Sunday to “share the mourning” of the United States. of the inhabitants of this small town dismayed by one of the worst massacres with a firearm in recent years in the country.
“You can’t make dramas illegal, I know. But America can be made safer,” he said. Joe Biden in a speech on Saturday, lamenting that “so many innocent people have died.”
“We will not allow those who are motivated by hate to separate us or scare us,” he said His vice president, Kamala Harris, who in mid-May attended the funeral of one of the ten black victims killed in a racist shooting in Buffalo, New York.
The Uvalde shooting, described in the US press as the “new Sandy Hook” Alluding to the gruesome massacre at a Connecticut elementary school in 2012, he returned to awaken the traumas of the United States by similar incidents with firearms.
The faces of the very young victims, between 9 and 11 years old, broadcast repeatedly on television, and the testimonies of their devastated loved ones have shocked the country, reigniting the debate to impose stricter controls. ;s strict to access firearms, an issue that generates strong divisions in Congress.
Biden, who has regularly denounced the “epidemic” of gun violence, has failed to get Congress to pass legislation to increase controls on gun sales.
“Congress must have the courage to confront, once and for all, the gun lobby and pass reasonable gun safety laws,” he tweeted. Vice President Harris, alluding to the powerful and influential National Rifle Association (NRA).
Meanwhile, Democrats in the Texas Senate urged Republican Governor Greg Abbott to call a session The legislature’s emergency call to pass bills that, among other measures, increase the minimum age for purchasing firearms.
However, the chances of that happening seem slim, as Texas has long been one of the most gun-friendly states in the entire country.