Fourteen students and a teacher were killed Tuesday in a shooting at an elementary school in Uwalde, Texas, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.
Abbott said the suspected shooter, an 18-year-old believed to be from Uwalde, had also died.
“He shot and killed a terrifying, incomprehensible 14 students and killed a teacher. “The shooter himself died and it is believed that the responsible police officers killed him,” Abbott said at a briefing.
Uwalde County Police Chief Pedro “Pete” Aredondo confirmed at a news conference on Tuesday that the suspect was dead, noting that they were believed to have acted alone during the “heinous” crime.
Aredondo called the shooting an incident of mass casualties and said families had been notified.
According to Uwalde Memorial Hospital (UMH), 13 children were transferred to the facility after being reported as an active shooter at Rob Elementary School in Uwalde.
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Two children were also transferred to San Antonio, about 135 kilometers west of Uwalde, and another child is awaiting transfer.
Law enforcement officers stand in front of Rob Elementary School after a shooting Tuesday, May 24, 2022, in Uwalde, Texas. (AP Photo / Dario Lopez-Mills)
Two of the people who arrived at UMH have died, the hospital said in an online update.
“Please refrain from coming to the hospital at this time,” the update said.
Another hospital, University Health, said it had admitted two shooting patients, one child and one adult, a 66-year-old woman in critical condition.
The nature and severity of these injuries are not immediately known, but the shooter was detained shortly after 1 p.m., the Uwalde Police Department said.
The school has only 575 students from 2nd to 4th grade.
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Earlier, the district announced that all schools in the district were closed due to shootings in the area.
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A dispatcher from the Uwalde police department said the scene was still active and no other information was available immediately.
The district said the city center would be used as a reunification center and that parents would be able to take their children there once everyone was reported.
United States President Joe Biden has been briefed on the shooting, according to spokesman Carine Jean-Pierre.
“His prayers are with the families affected by this horrific event, and he will speak tonight when he returns to the White House,” Jean-Pierre said online.
His prayers are with the families affected by this horrific event, and he will speak tonight when he returns to the White House.
– Karin Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) May 24, 2022
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The shooting is the deadliest in Texas since May 18, 2018, when a gunman killed 10 people and wounded 13 others at Santa Fe High School.
It also came after an 18-year-old gunman killed 10 people and injured three others at a supermarket in a predominantly black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York.
The shooting has revived the debate over gun control in the United States, with New York Governor Katie Hochul pushing new bills to further restrict people considered dangerous from accessing firearms.
Texas, meanwhile, has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the country. Abbot, a Republican, signed a law last year that allowed Texans to carry guns without a license or training.
Following the shooting at Santa Fe High School in 2018, Texas lawmakers have focused on improving school safety, including mandatory emergency training for all school staff and improved mental health care for students.
The law, which was passed in 2019, also requires school districts to set up “threat assessment teams” for each campus, as well as “bleeding control stations”, which are essentially battlefield turnstile kits in schools. .
Robb Elementary has a two-page list of preventative safety measures, including a threat assessment team, numerous campus police officers, security cameras and metal detectors.
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Biden called on Congress to pass meaningful gun control legislation after past mass shootings, but action on any restrictions was routinely blocked by Republicans.
Asked about pushing for regulations last week after speaking out condemning the ideologies of white supremacy behind Buffalo’s shooting, Biden admitted: “It will be very difficult… I will not give up trying.”
Since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, more than 300,000 children have survived shootings in 320 schools, according to a Washington Post investigation.
The shootings killed at least 163 children, educators and others.
The US government is not monitoring school shootings, leaving most calculations to be done by independent advocacy groups and media reports.
– With files from the Associated Press
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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