Shocking mosaics of images on a black background highlight the innocence of children murdered at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde
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On Wednesday, One day after the Texas massacre, the identities of the 21 victims of the attacker began to be revealed, and whose photos were reflected this Thursday on the main front pages of the American press.
Among them, it was the tabloid New York Post that chose to highlight the faces of the victims in a shocking mosaic that moves a population still affected by a new massacre school.
“The lost children”, headlined the New York newspaper, with a black background. “The faces of fourth graders in a classroom”. And it is that it was not a murderous raid by various parts of the school, but rather the perpetrator of the massacre barricaded himself in a room and there he killed most of those present. The survivors, whose number has not been determined, endured almost an hour next to the bodies of the first victims and listening to the cries of the wounded, while the police surrounded the area.
“They sat in a Texas classroom, most just 10 years old, counting down the days to summer vacation”, indicates the title of the cover. Almost all the faces appear looking at the camera, smiling, with a life ahead of them, hopes frustrated by another adolescent who legally bought two weapons days after his 18th birthday.
For his part , the New York Times also featured the faces of the victims, “The faces of the overwhelming loss of a people< /b>”, headlined the prestigious newspaper, with the names of the victims identified until the closing of the edition.
On the cover There is also a comparative graph showing that the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde is among the three bloodiest school massacres in the country’s history.
The profiles of the victims are already beginning to be drawn. One student was an avid runner, so fast that she swept the races. Another was learning football moves from his grandfather. A girl felt that something bad was going to happen and did not want to go to school.
Manny Renfro said that on Tuesday he received the news that his grandson, Uziyah Garcia, 8 years, was among those who died. “He was the sweetest boy I have ever met,” he stated. “I’m not just saying that because he was my grandson.”
The Wall Street Journal also put the faces of some students , with a black frame
For its part, Los Angeles Times He chose not to put the faces, but the names of the 21 murdered. “Texas People Seek Answers, Lament”. For its part, the Boston Globe illustrated with a photo of a family embracing outside the Civic Center where the survivors gathered, a place where many people learned of the death of their children.
Los Angeles TImes
The Boston Globe
“You can only cry”, headlined the Boston Globe, a reflection of the impotence in the country due to the lack of palpable changes to face the attacks armed.
Many Americans share a sense that politicians have done little, even as acts of violence continue to recur. It is a dynamic that is summed up in the “thoughts and prayers” offered to victims of gun violence by politicians who are unwilling to make meaningful commitments to ensure that it truly “never ever” happens, said Martha Lincoln, an anthropology professor at San Francisco State University who studies the cultural politics of public health.
“I don’t think most Americans are comfortable with that. I think most Americans would like to see real action from their leaders in the culture on these pervasive issues,” said Lincoln, who spoke before the Uvalde attack and says there is a similar “political vacuum” around to COVID-19.
“There are no words”, headlined USA Today, also focusing on the photo on the families of the victims
Cover of the Washington Post
The assailant used an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle in the attack and posted on Facebook shortly before the shooting that “I am going to shoot up an elementary school.”
School district Superintendent Hal Harrell fought back tears as he spoke about the children and their teachers. “You can tell from their angelic smiles that they were well loved,” Harrell said of the children. “That they loved coming to school, that they were beautiful people.” The two professors “poured heart and soul” into their work, Harrell added.
There are many similarities between the United States’ response to COVID-19 and its response to the coronavirus epidemic. gun violence, according to Sonali Rajan, a Columbia University professor who researches school violence. “We have long normalized mass deaths in this country. Gun violence has persisted for decades as a public health crisis,” he said last week, noting that about 100,000 people are shot each year and about 40,000 of them will die.
In social networks, press covers with images or illustrations that could well correspond to the Texas massacre, but were made in other massacres, showing the unfortunate repetition of events in the country, went viral.
Lorena Auguste was a substitute teacher at Uvalde High School when she found out about the shooting. She began frantically texting her niece, a fourth-grader at Robb Elementary, until her sister informed her that the little girl was fine. Auguste said her niece asked her that night: “Aunt, why are they doing this to us? We’re good kids, we don’t do anything wrong”.
(With information from AP)