Meanwhile, family and friends have begun to bury their loved ones, and the community continues to thrive. In the sun-drenched town square of Uwalde, the fountain in the park is at the center of a growing memorial to the lost.
Hundreds of colorful bouquets ring in the fountain, lined up with toys, plush animals, candles and letters in memory of the 21 killed. The framed posters show smiling faces leaning against walls covered with painted hearts and chalk names. On a path leading to the square, visitors slowly pass a series of crosses, stopping to pray or reflect on the devastating tragedy. Each cross – several feet high and draped with flowers, balloons and commemorative messages – bears the name of someone killed. Ryan Ramirez, Alicia Ramirez’s father, said he waited nearly 12 hours before learning she had been killed. He described his 10-year-old daughter as “very loving and kind”.
“She was there for anyone who needed something. And that was one thing we all loved about her, “he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday.
Alicia “loved to paint,” her father said, and when he met with President Joe Biden during his visit to Uwalde on Sunday, Biden told him he would exhibit one of Alicia’s paintings at the White House.
“She always had a crayon in her hand, she just went to town,” Ramirez said.
The massacre ended Robb Elementary’s school year a few days earlier and students and staff “will not return” to this campus, the district’s chief said Wednesday. Superintendent Hal Harel’s statement did not specify the future of the building; a U.S. senator suggested the school could be destroyed. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday called on the vice governor and speaker of the House of Representatives to convene special legislative committees to make “legislative recommendations on school safety, mental health, social media, police training, fire safety and more.” . “
Abbott also instructed the Texas School Safety Center, an official research center at Texas State University, to conduct “comprehensive school safety reviews” and ensure that safety and security committees in all school districts meet before the new academic year. to discuss needs, review procedures and make sure all relevant staff are trained in safety procedures, according to a press release from the governor’s office.
The governor said the center must submit a progress report by October 1st.
Three people injured by the shooter were hospitalized Tuesday at the University Hospital of San Antonio. The shooter’s 66-year-old grandmother, who was shot in the face before the attack on the school, is in good condition; A 9-year-old girl is in good condition; and a 10-year-old girl is in serious condition, the hospital said.
The school police chief says he is in contact with the authorities
Meanwhile, Uwalde’s school police chief, who was in charge of the shooting incident, told CNN on Wednesday that he was in daily contact with the Texas Department of Public Safety, but declined to answer further questions about the massacre. Pedro Pete Aredondo has faced criticism for the decision to place officers in the corridor outside the classrooms where the shooting took place, waiting more than an hour to intervene before a Border Patrol tactical team enters the room and kill the shooter.
Asked about reports that he was not cooperating with the DPS, Aredondo told CNN: “I am in contact with the DPS every day.” Aredondo carried a badge and a gun when he spoke to CNN outside his home in Uwalde.
In a separate interview with CNN outside his office, Aredondo said on Wednesday that he would not release any information while the funeral continued.
“We will treat the family with respect,” he said. “We will do it eventually. When this is done and the families stop grieving, then obviously we will do it.”
This is the first time Aredondo has commented publicly after two brief news statements on the day of the attack, in which he said the gunman was dead, but provided little information about the shooting, citing the ongoing investigation and did not answer questions.
On Tuesday, the DPS said Aredondo had not responded to a request for a follow-up interview with Texas Rangers investigating the shooting.
The school’s police department and Uwalde’s police department are “still cooperating,” said Considine, a spokesman for the department.
After the rangers’ report on the massacre is over, Uwalde County Attorney Christina Busby will review it and “see if there are any criminal charges that need to be filed,” she told CNN on Wednesday.
McCrow, the DPS director, said last week that the man who decided not to disrupt the primary school classroom in Uwalde was the school district police chief, calling it a “wrong decision” not to engage in the shooter.
Arredondo graduated from the School of Active Law Enforcement Training in December 2021, according to his vocational training file received from CNN. He has previously completed two other active shooter training sessions in 2020 and 2019, the file said.
Meanwhile, the largest police union in Texas called on its members “to cooperate fully in all official government investigations into actions related to the reaction of law enforcement agencies to the mass shooting in Uwalde.”
The Texas Combined Law Enforcement Associations will refrain from commenting on the specifics of the investigation, out of respect for families and the investigation process, a press release said. But it is noted that “there is a lot of false and misleading information after this tragedy.”
“Some of the information comes from the highest levels of government and law enforcement. Sources that Texans once thought were iron-clad and completely reliable are now proven to be untrue,” the union said in a statement. “This false information has sharpened ill-informed speculation, which in turn has created a source of unreliability when it comes to finding the truth.
The justice ministry announced on Sunday that it would review law enforcement officials’ response to the shooting at the mayor’s request. Aredondo told CNN a day after he was sworn in as a member of the city council after being elected last month.
On Tuesday, the new members of the city council went to the town hall “which is convenient for them” to take the oath, said the mayor of Uwalde Don McLaughlin. There was no official ceremony “out of respect for the families who buried their children today and who plan to bury their children in the next few days,” McLaughlin said.
The mayor said Monday that the city council’s special meeting, at which new members must be sworn in, “will not take place on schedule”, adding that “our focus on Tuesday is on our families who have lost loved ones”.
Swearing in Aredondo on Tuesday night was a “private matter” out of respect for families, he told CNN in front of his home on Wednesday, adding that families are in the spotlight right now.
Posthumous award for one student
As the community mourns, more details emerge about how people inside have reacted to the terror. Elementary teacher Rob Nicole Ogburn had just turned on a film about her students when she saw someone carrying a gun in front of her classroom window, she said. I looked out the window and saw this man with the gun walking up. And I just told my class, “Get on the ground, get on the ground, get to the corner,” Ogburn told CNN affiliates KABB / WOAI.
“I kept hearing gunshots and just kept praying, ‘God, please don’t let him in my room, please don’t let him in that room,’ but for some reason he didn’t.”
Several phone calls to 911 were made from classrooms, where the shooter unleashed his deadly attack, with children begging police to intervene, according to a schedule provided by the state-run DPS. Amery Joe Garza, a 10-year-old student killed in the shooting, tried to use her phone during the shooting to call authorities, her family said earlier. She was posthumously awarded a bronze cross this week. one of the highest honors in girls’ scouting, “South West Texas scouts said in a statement Tuesday.
“Amery did everything she could to save the lives of her classmates and teachers,” the statement said. “We will always carry her story with us and ensure that her courageous actions last for generations.
More resources are coming in, the state says
While the shared trauma is being established, Texas officials are also working to address the needs on the ground, they said. To speed up the distribution of state and local resources, Abbott declared a state of emergency for Uvalde on Tuesday, according to a press release from the governor’s office.
“The disaster declaration will speed up all available state and local resources to support the Uwalde community, as well as repeal regulations that will prevent, hinder or delay the necessary actions to deal with the consequences of the tragic shooting,” the statement said.
“Uwalde’s community was devastated by the senseless act of violence last week at Rob’s primary school and should have no difficulty in obtaining the support needed for healing,” Abbott said.
Another help comes from serving volunteers from outside the city.
Patrick Johnson, 58, was so overwhelmed when he heard about the shooting that he drove seven hours from Harlton, Texas, to Uwalde, filling his trunk with Walmart toys to faint in town square, he told CNN.
For three days, the children were invited to choose a toy they liked from a table full of stuffed animals, miniature cars and soccer balls.
“When you lose something, especially as a child, you need something else to hold on to,” Johnson said. “It brings joy to the children, so it brings joy to me.”
Andy Rose, Aaron Cooper, Shimon Prokupets, Omar Jimenez, Eric Levenson, Christina Maxuris, Amanda Watts, Mark Morales, Rebecca Rhys, Alaa Elasar, Raja Razek, Joe Sutton, Jeremy Grisham and Virginia Langhamed for this report.
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