Texas elementary school shooting death toll rises to 19 children
Nineteen pupils aged between seven and 11 years old have been shot dead along with two of their teachers by an 18-year-old gunman who has also been killed in the latest school mass shooting to blight America – the deadliest since Sandy Hook almost a decade ago. Salvador Ramos – a fast food worker described as a lonely child who was bullied for his lisp and for wearing eyeliner – carried out the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, around 11.30am Tuesday after shooting his grandmother at a house elsewhere in the city, reportedly after an argument about failing to graduate. Police and officials said Ramos, who had purchased a pair of rifles for his 18th birthday and showed them off on social media, fled the scene of the first shooting in a car armed with a handgun, ‘possibly’ a rifle, and wearing body armor. He ditched the vehicle close to the school, went inside and ‘started shooting children, teachers, whoever was in his way.’ Two boys – Xavier Lopez, 10, and nine-year-old Uziyah Garcia – and four girls – Makenna Elrod, 10, Amerie Jo Garcia, 10, Eliahana Torres, also 10, and Ellie, whose age and surname were not immediately available – were among those he killed. Also fatally shot were two teachers: Eva Mireles, 44, and Irma Garcia, a mother-of-four. Cops rushed to the scene to reports of an armed man who had crashed a car near the school. Also on the scene were Border Patrol agents from a nearby outpost, one of whom got into a firefight with Ramos and shot him dead. An agent was wounded in the shoot-out but was able to walk himself out of the school, a local spokesman said. A number of others were also hurt in the attack, but the exact figure remained unclear late Tuesday. Conflicting reports suggested Ramos’s grandmother was in critical condition or had died of her injuries. Desperate parents appealed on social media for news of their missing children. Police said the death toll is expected to rise. Joe Biden, speaking at the White House where he had ordered flags to fly at half-staff in honour of the victims, kicked off the inevitable debate about gun control. Declaring himself ‘sick and tired’ of the cyclical discussion, he called for voters to ‘turn this pain into action’ to prevent more mass killings. ‘We have to act,’ he said. ‘As a nation, we have to ask, when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done,’ he said. Scroll Down For Video: Ted Cruz, Republican senator for Texas, led the response – repeating well-worn arguments that ‘restricting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens’ to prevent mass shootings ‘doesn’t work’. The solution, he said, is to put armed officers on school campuses. Cruz is due to speak an at NRA conference on Friday. Children confirmed dead by family members included 10-year-olds Xavier Lopez, Eliahana Torres, and Makenna Elrod, and eight-year-old Uziyah Garcia. Another girl called Ellie Garcia was also confirmed to have died by her grieving parents. ‘My nephew was a victim of a school shooting today,’ Mitch Renfro wrote on Facebook, confirming Garcia’s death. ‘An 8-year-old was killed by a crazy man.’ The missing included Rogelio Torres and Nevaeh Bravo. The father of 10-year-old Annabelle Guadalupe Rodriguez said that she was also still missing. ‘He shot and killed – horrifically and incomprehensibly – 14 students and killed a teacher,’ Abbott said at a press briefing. The death toll was later revised to 19 children. ‘There are families that are in mourning right now. And the state of Texas is in mourning with them.’ It was the deadliest such incident since 14 high school students and three adult staff were killed in Parkland, Florida in 2018 – and the worst at an elementary school since the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut, in which 20 children and six staff were killed. ‘The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong,’ said Joe Biden, addressing the country from the White House on Tuesday night. ‘As a nation, we have to ask: When in God’s name will we stand up to the gun lobby?’ He added: ‘Why are we willing to live…
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