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      Uvalde school police chief quits city council amid fury over shooting response

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      Uvalde school police chief quits city council amid fury over shooting responseState public safety chief blamed Pete Arredondo for delaying officers’ confrontation with gunman The Uvalde, Texas, school district police chief is resigning from his community’s city council amid criticism of the law enforcement response to the shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb elementary in May.Pedro “Pete” Arredondo told the Uvalde Leader-News that he was stepping down from the city council post to which he was sworn in just seven days after the massacre, the outlet reported on Saturday.Why did they wait? Uvalde anger grows over bungled police responseRead moreA statement from Uvalde’s mayor, Don McLaughlin, said the city government had received Arredondo’s resignation letter only after he announced his intentions through the local newspaper.McLaughlin’s statement called stepping down “the right thing to do” for Arredondo.According to the Leader-News, Arredondo continued maintaining that he was not the commander of officers who waited more than an hour before confronting and killing the shooter at Robb on 24 May. His statement is contrary to the findings from the state’s department of public safety chief, Steve McCraw, who concluded it was Arredondo’s call to delay officers that day despite the fact that they had adequate numbers and weaponry to put a stop to the carnage much sooner than they did.A copy of Arredondo’s resignation letter, released by McLaughlin’s office, offered prayers to the school massacre victims’ families.“In speaking with other communities that have had similar tragedies, the guidance has been the same: continue to support the families, continue to support our community and definitely to keep our faith,” Arredondo said.He also said he was leaving the council behind “to minimize further distractions” for the city.Arredondo had missed the first two city council meetings of his tenure and was facing expulsion from the panel if he had a third unexcused absence. The city council late last month rejected a request to grant him a leave of absence that would have protected him from being expelled from the body if he missed more than the two meetings.After Uvalde shooting, tech companies tout their solutions. But do they work?Read moreResidents had gone to the meeting where the council considered the leave of absence and urged his colleagues to vote it down. Some said he failed the slain students and teachers on the day of the attack, with the relative of one victim saying: “We’re begging – get this man out of our lives”.Before stepping down from the council, he was placed on paid administrative leave from his position as the school district’s police chief while federal and state investigations into the officers’ response to the attack at Robb continued.Residents had pondered subjecting Arredondo to a recall election if he insisted on keeping his seat on the city council. It would have required fewer than 50 signatures to compel the election, yet local laws prevented residents from taking such a step until February next year.After Arredondo’s resignation takes effect, voters in his council district will have the opportunity to elect a replacement to serve the rest of his four-year term.Arredondo was his county’s highest paid law enforcement official, earning $90,750 each year after becoming the Uvalde school district’s police chief in 2020. The local sheriff’s salary, by contrast, is about $77,915, the Leader-News reported.His ability to serve in his public positions seemingly became tenuous after a committee of state lawmakers examining the shooting released a timeline showing 11 officers had been positioned outside two classrooms under attack within seven minutes of the first 911 call.At least two of the officers had rifles, providing a team that was adequate to mount an assault against the intruder, who was fleeing the scene of another shooting, McCraw has said.Police responding to so-called active shooters have been trained for at least two decades to confront the assailants as soon as practical rather than wait for reinforcements, a practice that was developed amid countless mass killings across the US over the past two decades.But instead of ordering officers to go in, Arredondo – who was on site at the school – reportedly had them wait while he called the city police force for reinforcements.“We don’t have enough firepower right now,” Arredondo said, in part, according to a committee transcript of that call.Arredondo also purportedly worried that the door to the classroom where the intruder was cornered had potentially been locked, and he couldn’t immediately track down its key. But the door was in fact not locked – and even if it was, officers had a “hooligan” tool that could pry locked doors open, according to the committee’s evidence.Officers stormed the classroom 77 minutes into the attack and killed the gunman. But by then he had already murdered 21 and wounded 17 others.McCraw ultimately assessed Arredondo’s performance that day as an “abject failure and antithetical to everything we’ve learned” about mass shootings.TopicsTexas school shootingUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Why did they wait? Uvalde anger grows over bungled police response

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      Why did they wait? Uvalde anger grows over bungled police response Searing public testimony illustrates extreme reluctance of police chief to let his officers put a stop to the carnageRuben Ruiz, a school district police officer in Uvalde, Texas, was standing in a hallway outside the classroom where his wife taught fourth-graders a couple of days before summer break. His wife, Eva Mireles, had just called his cellphone, begging for help after an intruder had shot her and her students.Ruiz was among 18 officers who had rushed over to his wife’s school, Robb elementary, in response to reports of an active shooter. He was ready to charge in with a few of his fellow law enforcement officers, battle the 18-year-old rifleman who had invaded the campus, and hopefully save his wife and her students.But Ruiz’s fellow officers didn’t back him up when he began advancing toward Mireles’s classroom door. They stopped him, stripped him of his service gun and made him leave the campus.Uvalde shootings: police response an ‘abject failure’, Texas safety chief saysRead more“She had been shot and was dying,” Texas’s public safety chief, Steve McCraw, said of Mireles while speaking earlier this week to a panel of state lawmakers investigating the attack at Robb elementary on 24 May. “And what happened to [Ruiz] is he … was detained and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene.”Ultimately, Mireles, a co-worker and 19 of their students – 10- and 11-year-olds – were murdered by the intruder at Robb elementary. Another 17 people at the campus were wounded before, 77 minutes after the first call to emergency operators reported the intrusion, police stormed Mireles’s classroom and killed the murderer.McCraw’s public testimony to Texas state senators about Ruiz and Mireles was only the latest in a growing mound of evidence illustrating the extreme reluctance the Uvalde school district police force’s chief showed before letting officers put a stop to the carnage at Robb elementary.News about the 21 children and teachers killed at the elementary school in a small town of 16,000 mostly Latino residents near the Mexican border was traumatic enough for a nation where deadly mass shootings occur with alarming regularity.Yet revelations in recent days about the exact number of well-equipped officers who essentially stood in place for more than an hour while an intruder murdered his victims have made the tragedy ever tougher to comprehend.Hopes for accountability that feels somewhat satisfying – let alone like justice – are waning. It took a month before the school district put its police force chief, Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, on administrative leave, keeping him on the payroll but without him really working his position.Residents who had recently elected Arredondo to a city council seat were hoping to subject him to a recall election because it would have required fewer than 50 signatures. Yet laws prevent them from taking such a step until February next year.And legal precedent affords little hope that parents could sue authorities in Texas to collect civil damages for their failure to limit the carnage at Robb elementary despite a prime opportunity to do so, according to experts. It all made for a week that seemed to prove that, even with the unthinkable, it can always get worse.Arredondo’s continued leadership of the Uvalde school district police force seemed to become untenable after a Texas senate committee investigating the massacre at Robb heard McCraw’s testimony and published evidence to support it.A timeline that the committee pieced together in part by officers’ body-worn camera footage and radio transmissions showed that there were 11 officers positioned outside two classrooms under attack within seven minutes of the first 911 call about the intrusion. At least two of the officers had rifles, providing a force that was adequate to mount an assault against the intruder in an attempt to rescue those he was terrorizing, McCraw said.Police who respond first to so-called active shooters have been trained for at least two decades to confront the attackers as immediately as practical rather than wait for reinforcements, a painful lesson learned through countless mass killings across America over the years.But at that point, Arredondo had officers wait while he called the municipal police force for reinforcements.“We don’t have enough firepower right now – it’s all pistol, and he has an AR-15,” Arredondo said, according to a committee transcript of that call.Since then, in one of the few media interviews he has granted, Arredondo told the Texas Tribune website that a factor costing him time was that the door to the classroom where the intruder was had potentially been locked, and he couldn’t immediately find its key.But, within a minute of his call for reinforcements, emergency dispatchers had asked officers by radio whether the door was locked. An officer accompanying Arredondo said he wasn’t sure, but those at the scene had with them a so-called hooligan tool that can pry locked doors open. On Tuesday, McCraw said the door had not in fact been locked.Seven minutes after that exchange, Ruiz – the husband of the teacher in charge of the classroom under attack – told fellow officers that his wife “says she is shot” inside. But, instead of going in, officers removed him from the scene and stayed put, with one suggesting that they needed the incoming backup to help with crowd control outside the building.Cellphone videos from the parking lot around that time showed officers holding back onlookers urging the cops to charge into the school, other parts of which were being evacuated.Soon, a member of the state public safety department who went to the scene began asking whether there were children still in the classroom. Another officer replied, “It is unknown at this time.”The public safety department officer then twice said, “If there’s kids in there, we need to go in there.” The timeline notes a radio transmission reminding officers at the scene that “it is critical” to let the local police take the lead on the situation.That transmission seems to contradict a prior statement in Arredondo’s limited media remarks that he was unsure who was in charge and assumed someone else was.In any event, 50 minutes after the transmission about letting the local police lead, Arredondo told officers to storm the classroom where the intruder was when ready. Officers did and killed the intruder.McCraw dismissed Arredondo’s handling of the response as “abject failure and antithetical to everything we’ve learned” about mass shootings.A little more than a day after McCraw made that statement, the school district’s superintendent placed Arredondo on administrative leave.Police chief who led response to school shooting sworn in to Uvalde councilRead moreNeither Arredondo nor his attorney have responded to repeated requests for comment. Arredondo testified behind closed doors for a separate state house of representatives committee investigating the killings at Robb, but he hasn’t made any public statements about what he told that body.It’s clear that the loved ones of the killed children and teachers want more.Yet the prospects for a resounding civil lawsuit over the police failure to protect the victims seem unlikely. Ominously for the potential plaintiffs, in late 2020, a federal court of appeals left in place a lower court ruling that found police officers were not liable for various failures to protect students during the 2018 shooting that killed 17 at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida.“It’s very difficult to recover on those,” said Gary Bizal, a Louisiana-based attorney who often represents people accusing police of failing to uphold their duty. “You almost have to prove that you knew something would happen if you didn’t react, didn’t do anything – not that it was a possibility, but it was guaranteed.”So some of those in Uvalde still deep in their grief went to a Tuesday night meeting of the city council, the second in a row which Arredondo had missed.The council was considering a leave of absence for Arredondo, which would protect him from being possibly dismissed from the panel if he missed a third consecutive meeting. But residents spoke out against cutting Arredondo any sort of break, and the council voted the measure down.One of the speakers, Kim Hammond, said there was palpable momentum for a petition to make Arredondo face a recall election for the seat he won on 7 May. Because his election had quite a low turnout, such a petition would only need 45 signatures, or 25% of the total votes cast for the contest.But the law protects him from such a petition for the first eight months in office, and Hammond implored the council to make Arredondo either start attending meetings or risk losing his seat.“Don’t give him an out” with the leave of absence, Hammond said. “We don’t want him – we want him out.”The grandmother of 10-year-old Amerie Jo Garza, one of the students killed at Robb, implored the council to dismiss Arredondo if he missed the necessary number of meetings.“Make it right for everyone in here,” Berlinda Arreola said. “We deserve better. Our children deserve better. And those teachers deserve better. Please! Please! We’re begging – get this man out of our lives.”TopicsUS newsTexas school shootingUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      March for Our Lives: thousands rally for gun reform across US – video

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      Rallies to call for gun reform were held in Washington, New York, other US cities and around the world on Saturday, seeking to increase pressure on Congress to act after a spate of mass shootings. In Washington, the son of an 86-year-old victim in the Buffalo supermarket shooting said: ‘Stop the slaughter of our most precious commodity: people.’ The March for Our Lives rallies come less than a month after 19 children and two teachers were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas

      ‘Enough is enough’: thousands rally across US in gun control protests
      New Yorkers join march for gun reform More

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      ‘Enough is enough’: thousands rally across US in gun control protests

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      ‘Enough is enough’: thousands rally across US in gun control protestsThe March for Our Lives rallies come after mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York

      New Yorkers join march for gun reform
      01:59Rallies for gun reform were held in Washington, New York, other US cities and around the world on Saturday, seeking to increase pressure on Congress to act following a spate of mass shootings.‘Caring and giving’: funeral for Uvalde victim held amid gun law protestsRead moreIn Washington, the son of an 86-year-old victim in the Buffalo supermarket shooting said: “Enough is enough. We will not go quietly into the night.”The March for Our Lives rallies came less than a month after 10 people were killed in the racist attack in Buffalo, New York and 19 children and two teachers were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.Other mass shootings, widely defined as shootings in which four people or more excluding the shooter are hurt or killed, have also helped put the issue center-stage.March for Our Lives was formed in 2018 after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, in which 14 students and three adults were killed. Organisers estimated a million people, mostly young, joined protests then.The group helped force Republicans in Florida to enact reforms including raising the age to buy long guns, including AR-15-style rifles, from 18 to 21; enacting a three-day gap between purchase and access; allowing trained school staff to carry guns; and putting $400m into mental health services and school security.Florida lawmakers also approved a “red flag law” that can deny firearms to individuals believed to pose a danger to themselves or others.Organisers on Saturday were focusing on smaller marches at more locations. The DC protest was expected to draw 50,000. The 2018 march filled downtown Washington with more than 200,000 people.By noon on Saturday, thousands had gathered around the Washington Monument. Protestors held signs demanding justice for the victims of Uvalde and Buffalo. Speakers included activists, family members of those killed and shooting survivors.Garnell Whitfield, son of Ruth Whitfield, an 86-year-old killed in Buffalo, told the crowd he and his family were “still in a state of shock”. When she was killed, Ruth Whitfield was buying groceries after visiting her husband at a nursing home.Happening now: March for our Lives in Buffalo #MarchForOurLivesJune11 pic.twitter.com/QHPtmTzbor— Gabriel Elizondo (@elizondogabriel) June 11, 2022
      “We are being naive to think that it couldn’t happen to us,” Garnell Whitfield said. “Enough is enough. We will not go quietly into the night as victims. We hear a lot about prayer, and prayer is wonderful and we thank you for your prayers. But prayer is not a noun, it’s a verb. It’s an action. You pray, then you get up and you work.”The parents of Joaquin Oliver, a 17-year-old killed in the Parkland shooting, wore shirts bearing a picture of their son.“I was hoping to avoid attending a march like this ever again,” Manuel Oliver said, standing next to his wife, Patricia. “Our elected officials betrayed us and have avoided the responsibility to end gun violence.”The crowd heard from two founders of March for Our Lives, David Hogg and X Gonzalez, both Parkland survivors.“All Americans have a right to not be shot, a right to safety,” Hogg said. “Nowhere in the constitution is unrestricted access to weapons of war a guaranteed right.“We’ve seen the damage AR-15s do. When we look at the innocent children of Uvalde, tiny coffins horrify us. Tiny coffins filled with small, mutilated and decapitated bodies. That should fill us with rage and demands for change.”Hogg emphasized state and local gun legislation passed since 2018. He noted a red flag law that saw a court-ordered disarming of an individual who sent his mother a death threat. He encouraged the crowd to bring the issue of gun control to the polls.“If our government can’t do anything to stop 19 kids from being killed and slaughtered in their own school and decapitated, it’s time to change who is in government,” Hogg said.Gonzalez gave an impassioned rebuke to Congress.“I’ve spent these past four years doing my best to keep my rage in check. To keep my profanity at a minimum so everyone can understand and appreciate the arguments I’m trying to make, but I have reached my fucking limit. We are being murdered. Cursing will not rob us of our innocence.“You say that children are the future, and you never listen to what we say once we’re old enough to disagree with you, you decaying degenerates. You really want to protect children, pass some fucking gun laws.”Gonzalez said Congress had started treating mass shootings as a “fact of life”, like natural disasters. She criticized politicians for their relationships with gun lobbyists, saying: “We saw you cash those fucking checks. We as children did the heavy lifting for you. Act your age, not your shoe-size, Congress. You ought to be ashamed.”Yolanda King, who spoke at the 2018 March for Our Lives rally when she was nine, spoke of hope for action after Uvalde and Buffalo. Now 14, she evoked her grandfather, Martin Luther King Jr.“My grandfather was taken from the world by gun violence. Six years after his death, his mother, my great-grandmother, was killed in church during Sunday service. We have all been touched by tragedy, we have all been lifted up by hope.“Today we’re telling Congress, we’re telling the gun lobby and we’re telling the world this time is different. This time is different because we’ve had enough. We’ve had enough of having more guns than people here in America. Together, we can carve that stone of love and hope out of that mountain of death and despair. Together we can build a gun-free world for all people.Dozens of other rallies saw protesters call for stronger legislation. In Buffalo, hundreds protested outside the supermarket where the shooting happened. The group held a moment of silence and chanted “Not one more”.March for Our Lives has called for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks for gun purchases and a national licensing system.The US House has passed bills that would raise the age limit to buy semi-automatic weapons and establish a federal “red flag” law. But previous such initiatives have stalled or been watered down in the Senate. The new marches were to take place a day after senators left Washington without reaching agreement in guns talks.On Saturday, Joe Biden tweeted his support.“I join them by repeating my call to Congress: do something,” the president said, adding that Congress must ban assault weapons, strengthen background checks, pass red flag laws and repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity to liability.“We can’t fail the American people again,” the president wrote. More

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      US House passes gun control bill but it faces defeat in Senate

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      US House passes gun control bill but it faces defeat in SenateSweeping legislation would raise age limit for buying a semiautomatic rifle and put curbs on ammunition sales The US House of Representatives has passed a wide-ranging gun control bill in response to recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, but the proposals have almost no chance of being approved by the Senate and becoming law.The bill would raise the age limit for buying a semi-automatic rifle and prohibit the sale of ammunition magazines with a capacity of more than 15 rounds. The legislation passed by a mostly party-line vote of 223-204. It has almost no chance of becoming law as the Senate pursues negotiations focused on improving mental health programmes, bolstering school security and enhancing background checks. But the House bill does give Democratic lawmakers a chance to frame for voters in November where they stand on policies that polls show are widely supported. “We can’t save every life, but my God, shouldn’t we try? America we hear you and today in the House we are taking the action you are demanding,” said Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat. “Take note of who is with you and who is not.”The vote came after a House committee heard wrenching testimony from recent shooting victims and family members, including from an 11-year-old girl, Miah Cerrillo, who covered herself with a dead classmate’s blood to avoid being shot at Uvalde elementary school. 01:59The seemingly never-ending cycle of mass shootings in the US has rarely stirred Congress to act. But the shooting of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde has revived efforts in a way that has lawmakers from both parties talking about the need to respond. “It’s sickening, it’s sickening that our children are forced to live in this constant fear,” said the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.Pelosi said the House vote would “make history by making progress”. But i is unclear where the House measure will go after Wednesday’s vote, given that Republicans were adamant in their opposition. “The answer is not to destroy the second amendment, but that is exactly where the Democrats want to go,“ said the Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio. The work to find common ground is mostly taking place in the Senate, where support from 10 Republicans will be needed to get a bill signed into law. Nearly a dozen Democratic and Republican senators met privately for an hour on Wednesday in hope of reaching a framework for compromise legislation by the end of the week. Participants said more conversations were needed about a plan that is expected to propose modest steps. In a measure of the political peril that efforts to curb guns pose for Republicans, five of the six lead Senate GOP negotiators do not face re-election until 2026. They are senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. The sixth, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, is retiring in January. It is also notable that none of the six is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.While Cornyn has said the talks are serious, he has not joined the chorus of Democrats saying the outlines of a deal could be reached by the end of this week. He told reporters on Wednesday that he considered having an agreement before Congress begins a recess in late June to be “an aspirational goal”. The House bill stitches together a variety of proposals Democrats had introduced before the recent shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde. The suspects in the shootings at Uvalde elementary school and the Buffalo supermarket were both 18, authorities say, when they bought the semiautomatic weapons used in the attacks. The bill would increase the minimum age to buy such weapons to 21. “A person under 21 cannot buy a Budweiser. We should not let a person under 21 buy an AR-15 weapon of war,“ said Ted Lieu, a California Democrat. Republicans have noted that a US appeals court ruling last month found California’s ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 was unconstitutional. “This is unconstitutional and it’s immoral. Why is it immoral? Because we’re telling 18, 19 and 20-year-olds to register for the draft. You can go die for your country. We expect you to defend us, but we’re not going to give you the tools to defend yourself and your family,” said Thomas Massie of Kentucky. The House bill also includes incentives designed to increase the use of safe gun storage devices and creates penalties for violating safe storage requirements, providing for a fine and imprisonment of up to five years if a gun is not properly stored and is subsequently used by a minor to injure or kill themselves or another individual. It also builds on executive actions banning fast-action “bump stock” devices and “ghost guns” that are assembled without serial numbers. The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, hailed the House bill, tweeting: “We continue to work hard with both parties to save lives and stand up for families.” Five Republicans voted for the bill: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, Chris Jacobs of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Fred Upton of Michigan. Only Fitzpatrick is seeking re-election. On the Democratic side, Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon were the only no votes. Schrader lost his re-election attempt in the Democratic primary. Golden faces a competitive election in November. The House is also expected to approve a bill on Thursday that would allow families, police and others to ask federal courts to order the removal of firearms from people who are believed to be at extreme risk of harming themselves or others. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia currently have such “red flag laws”. Under the House bill, a judge could issue an order to temporarily remove and store the firearms until a hearing can be held no longer than two weeks later to determine whether the firearms should be returned or kept for a specific period.TopicsUS gun controlHouse of RepresentativesUS school shootingsTexas school shootingUS politicsBuffalo shootingUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Lexi’s voice demands action’: family of Uvalde victims beg Congress to address gun violence

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      ‘Lexi’s voice demands action’: family of Uvalde victims beg Congress to address gun violenceKimberly Rubio wept as she described the harrowing events of 24 May and asked for strengthened gun laws from Congress 01:59Kimberly and Felix Rubio went twice to Robb Elementary school on the morning of 24 May, first to attend an end-of-year awards ceremony for their youngest son and then to attend one for their daughter, Lexi, who was in the fourth grade.They beamed with pride as Lexi was honored with the “good citizen” award and recognized for earning straight As. To celebrate, they promised to take her for ice cream later that night.“In the reel that keeps scrolling across my memories, she turns her head and smiles back at us to acknowledge my promise,” Kimberly Rubio told a House oversight committee via video link on Wednesday. “And then we left.”Uvalde survivor, 11, tells House hearing she smeared herself with friend’s blood Read moreThrough tears she continued: “I left my daughter at that school and that decision will haunt me for the rest of my life.”Felix Rubio sat silently next to his wife, eyes downcast as she described the harrowing events that followed: their desperate, hours-long search for their children. Relief when a teacher said their son was safe, and the moment they realized Lexi, their “intelligent, compassionate and athletic” daughter who dreamed of attending law school would not live to graduate the fourth grade.“That opportunity was taken from her; she was taken from us,” her mother said.Lexi Rubio was among the 19 students and two teachers killed when a gunman armed with an assault-style rifle stormed a pair of adjoining classrooms and opened fire. She was 10.“We don’t want you to think of Lexi as just a number,” Kimberly Rubio said. “So today we stand for Lexi, and her voice demands action.”The oversight committee hearing on gun violence was scheduled in the wake of successive mass shootings in recent weeks that have claimed the lives of dozens of Americans in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas, and elsewhere. The committee heard from a pediatrician, a police commissioner, the mayor of New York and experts on the issue of gun violence, who almost uniformly echoed the Rubios’ call for action.But perhaps the most heart-rending testimony came from 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader at Robb elementary school. In a pre-taped video, Miah, wearing a shirt that said “live by the sun” with sunflowers, recounted how the gunman appeared in their classroom as they scrambled to hide behind desks and the rows of backpacks. He told her teacher “goodnight” before shooting her in the head, she said.The gunman then shot her classmates and then her friend who was huddling next to her. “I thought he would come back to the room, so I grabbed blood and put it all over me,” she said.Roy Guerrero, the sole pediatrician in Uvalde, said the horror of tending to the small bodies “pulverized” by bullets fired by an AR-15-style semi-automatic weapon, embedded memories he said “no prayer could ever relieve”.Guerrero said he could save children from broken bones and bacterial infections, but only Congress could save them from the scourge of gun violence.“Making sure that our children are safe from guns, that’s the job of politicians and leaders,” he said, adding: “We are bleeding out and you are not there.”The Rubios pleaded with Congress to change gun laws and prevent more communities from experiencing the overwhelming tragedy that has consumed Uvalde, where Lexi’s classmates are still being buried.Kimberly Rubio asked Congress to raise the age to 21 for purchases of military-style assault rifles, like the one that killed Lexi, as well as for strengthening background checks on gun buyers and repealing the immunity that shields gun manufacturers from being held liable.As lawmakers chase an elusive deal on gun control, Kimberly Rubio urged a consensus: “At this moment, we ask for progress.”Appearing on Capitol Hill, Miah’s father, Miguel Cerrillo, said something had to change. In brief, tearful testimony, he told the committee that the shooting had changed his daughter.“I came because I could’ve lost my baby girl,” he said. “She’s not the same little girl that I used to play with and run with … because she was Daddy’s little girl.”“I wish something would change,” he concluded, breaking down in tears. Congresswoman Rashida Talib led him out of the hearing room by hand.The still-raw display of emotions underscored the depths of America’s gun violence crisis. But it also emphasized the gaping partisan divide that simmered and then flared on the floor of the House ahead of what was expected to be a party-line vote on a suite of gun reform measures.“It is my hope that all my colleagues will listen with an open heart as gun violence survivors and loved ones recount one of the darkest days of their lives,” said congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat of New York and the chair of the oversight committee. “This hearing is ultimately about saving lives, and I hope it will galvanize my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass legislation to do just that.”The committee also heard from Zeneta Everhart, who recounted in graphic detail how close she came to losing her son, Zaire Goodman, who was shot in the neck during a racist mass shooting at the Tops Friendly supermarket in Buffalo where he worked. Thirteen people were shot in the assault, 10 fatally.“Let me paint a picture for you: my son Zaire has a hole in the right side of his neck, two on his back and another on his left leg. Caused by an exploding bullet from an AR-15,” she said. “As I clean those wounds I can feel pieces of that bullet in his back.”“I want you to picture that exact scenario for one of your children,” she said. “This should not be your story or mine.”Everhart said it was naive to say, as so many do in the wake of senseless acts of violence, that the attacks do not represent “who we are as a nation”. Speaking as the descendant of enslaved Americans, she said the racist violence that erupted in a Buffalo supermarket last month had ugly roots in the nation’s founding.“Hear me clearly,” she said. “This is exactly who we are.”The committee also heard from Lucretia Hughes, a conservative activist invited to testify by Republicans. In fervent remarks to the committee, she said her son was killed in 2016 by a convicted felon who had illegally obtained a firearm. Gun control laws, which she described as “steeped in racism”, did little to save her son, she said.“Y’all are delusional if you think it’s going to keep us safe,” Hughes said of the calls for new firearms restrictions. Citing the widely-criticized response by law enforcement officers in Uvalde, she added: “We must prepare to be our own first responders.”But children and teachers shouldn’t have to bear that responsibility, Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, told the committee. The number of students who will never get to “live into their brilliance” is unconscionable, and yet it fails to capture the totality of the long-lasting physical and emotional damage wrought by these attacks, she said.“Students across our country are writing goodbye notes and wills – just in case,” she exclaimed. “Unfortunately their fear is perfectly rational.”In the video to the committee, Miah Cerrillo was asked if she feels safe at school.Miah shook her head no.“Why not?”“Cause,” she said slowly, fidgeting as children often do, “I don’t want it to happen again.”“You think it’s going to happen again?”Miah nods her head. Yes, she thinks it will.Kimberly Rubio also fears it will happen again. But she hopes, in honor of her daughter, that it can happen less, that, perhaps, with new laws and new restrictions, there will be fewer mothers in the future whose children go to school and never come home.“Somewhere out there, there’s a mom listening to our testimony and thinking, ‘I can’t even imagine their pain,’ not knowing that our reality will one day be hers,” she said. “Unless we act now.”TopicsUS school shootingsTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS CongressUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Uvalde survivor, 11, tells House hearing she smeared herself with friend’s blood

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      Uvalde survivor, 11, tells House hearing she smeared herself with friend’s blood Miah Cerrillo recounts at gun violence hearing how she watched as her teacher and friends were shot and acted quickly to save herself01:59An 11-year-old survivor of the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas testified before the House oversight committee on Wednesday, as lawmakers continued to try to reach a compromise on gun control legislation after a series of devastating mass shootings.‘It all happened too fast’: injured Uvalde teacher recounts school shootingRead moreThe House hearing came two weeks after an 18-year-old opened fire at Robb elementary school, killing 19 children and two teachers, and three weeks after 10 people were killed at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader at the Uvalde school, recounted how she watched as her teacher and friends were shot and acted quickly to save herself. Miah covered herself in a friend’s blood and played dead until she was able to reach her teacher’s phone and call police.In her recorded testimony, Miah said she no longer felt safe at school.“Because I don’t want it to happen again,” she said.The slow police response to the Uvalde shooting has been the focus of intense scrutiny and criticism.Miah was joined by other families affected by gun violence, including Felix and Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter Lexi died in Uvalde, and Zeneta Everhart, whose son Zaire Goodman was injured in Buffalo. Ten people were killed there, in a supermarket by another gunman with an AR-15-style rifle.“We don’t want you to think of Lexi as just a number,” Rubio told the committee. “She was intelligent, compassionate and athletic. So today we stand for Lexi, and as her voice we demand action.”Gun control experts and New York mayor Eric Adams also testified at the hearing on the need to restrict access to firearms and, by extension, reduce violent crime.“It is high noon in America, time for every one of us to decide where we stand on the issue of gun violence,” Adams said. “I am here today to ask every one of you, and everyone in this Congress, to stand with me to end gun violence and protect the lives of all Americans.”But the emotional and searing testimony did not stop Republicans on the committee rehashing talking points about why they oppose gun restrictions.“Kneejerk reactions to impose gun control policies that seek to curtail our constitutional right to bear arms are not the answer,” said James Comer, the Republican ranking member.The Democratic chair of the committee, Carolyn Maloney, criticized Republican efforts to deflect attention from the need to reform gun laws.“They have blamed violent video games. They have blamed family values. They have even blamed open doors. They have blamed everything but guns,” Maloney said. “But we know the United States does not have a monopoly on mental illness, video games or any other excuse. What America does have is widespread access to guns.”The House was working on Wednesday to pass gun control proposals which would raise the age requirement to buy semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21 and enact a federal extreme risk protection order for gun access, known as a “red-flag” law.The House has already passed bills to expand background checks for firearm purchases and increase the time gun sellers must wait for checks to be completed.But all those bills are unlikely to pass the 50-50 Senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass most legislation. A bipartisan group of senators has been negotiating over a potential compromise on gun control, but any legislation that can make it through the Senate will probably be far narrower than proposals approved by the House.Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, indicated on Tuesday that Democrats’ proposal to raise the age requirement for purchasing semi-automatic weapons was unlikely to be included in the Senate bill.“That can be in the discussion, but right now we’re trying to work on things where we have agreement,” Tillis told CNN. “We’ve got a lot of people in the discussion. We’ve got to get 60 votes.”Despite such disputes, senators have voiced confidence that they can craft a compromise bill. Members of the group met again Wednesday, and John Cornyn, a Republican of Texas, expressed hope that they would soon strike an agreement.“I think it’s reasonable to expect in the next couple weeks, maybe this work period, that that would be – I’m just speaking for myself – an aspirational goal,” Cornyn said. “But obviously, we have 100 senators who are free agents, and they can do anything they want on whatever timetable.”02:08The families whose lives have been forever altered by gun violence came to the House on Wednesday with specific demands.Everhart asked for more schools to teach Black history so children would understand the violent history of white supremacy, given that the Buffalo shooter voiced support for racist conspiracy theories.Rubio also called on lawmakers to ban assault rifles, raise the age requirement to purchase semi-automatic weapons and enact a national “red flag” law.“We understand that for some reason, to some people – to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns – that guns are more important than children. So at this moment, we ask for progress,” Rubio said.“Somewhere out there, there’s a mom listening to our testimony thinking, ‘I can’t even imagine their pain’ – not knowing that our reality will one day be hers unless we act now.”TopicsUS school shootingsTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Uvalde: 11-year-old survivor tells hearing she smeared herself with friend’s blood – video

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      An 11-year-old survivor of the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas testified before the House oversight committee on Wednesday, as lawmakers continued debate gun control legislation after a series of devastating mass shootings. Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader at the Uvalde school, recounted how she watched as her teacher and friends were shot and acted quickly to save herself. Miah covered herself in a friend’s blood and played dead until she was able to reach her teacher’s phone and call police.

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