10:24 p.m. update
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Authorities say victim toll in Texas school shooting stands at 19 children, two adults.
9:16 p.m. update
President Joe Biden on Tuesday called for legislation to restrict access to firearms in the wake of the school shooting in Texas that left at least 20 dead.
An 18-year-old gunman, Salvador Rolando Ramos, went into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on Tuesday and killed at least 18 students and a teacher before he was killed by law enforcement. Authorities said he used a handgun and may have used a rifle, as well.
Biden said he’d hoped when he was elected president he would never have to speak about a school shooting again.
“I am sick and tired of it,” Biden said. “We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.”
He questioned from behind the lectern why America has more mass shootings than any other nation and said it is because of Americans’ access to guns. He said other countries have people with mental illnesses, domestic disputes and “people who are lost.”
“These mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency they happen in America,” Biden said. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone?”
He said it is time to turn the pain parents and siblings and families are feeling into action to prevent future shootings, and he believes the way to do that is to enact tougher gun restrictions.
“There’s a hollowness in your chest, you feel like you’re being sucked into it,” Biden said. “It’s time to turn this pain into action, for every parent, for every citizen in this country. It’s time to act.”
Biden also called on the nation to pray for the families and communities in Uvalde.
Biden called on the nation to pray for the parents and siblings of those dead. “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away,” he said.
8:30 p.m. update
HOUSTON — A gunman killed 19 people, including 18 children, in a shooting Tuesday at an elementary school in a predominantly Latino Texas town.
“He shot and killed — horrifically, incomprehensibly,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.
Abbott said at a news conference that the shooter — whom he identified as Salvador Ramos, 18 — had a handgun and possibly a rifle Tuesday morning when he entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a city of about 16,000 people approximately 85 miles west of San Antonio.
Police officers are believed to have killed the gunman, who had been a student at a nearby high school, Abbott said.
Pete Arredondo, police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, said Tuesday afternoon that investigators believed that “the suspect did act alone during this heinous crime.”
Ramos shot and wounded his grandmother before he arrived at the elementary school, according to a law enforcement source.
Clad in all black, Ramos was captured on a security camera approaching the school carrying at least one visible weapon. Investigators searched a black SUV that the gunman abandoned near the school moments before the shooting and federal and local law enforcement are conducting searches at his home and other addresses associated with his family.
The incident is the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. elementary school since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults in the 2012 Sandy Hook school attack in Newtown, Connecticut.
“Everybody’s heartbroken and stunned,” said Uvalde County Commissioner John Yeackle. “It’s a small town, so no one is going to be unaffected. There won’t be anybody that doesn’t know — either directly or indirectly — either family or friends that are going to be affected by this.”
At least two officers were struck by the shooter’s gunfire and one has a wound, according to a law enforcement source.
Uvalde Memorial Hospital received 17 injured children via ambulance or school bus, two of them dead on arrival, according to hospital Chief Executive Tom Nordwick.
Nordwick said the hospital also treated a man in his mid-40s who had suffered minor injuries in the shooting.
“He just said, ‘Treat the kids,’” Nordwick said, adding that 12 children were still being treated in the ER. He couldn’t say what their condition was.
Two children were transported to a hospital in San Antonio, and another was awaiting transport, hospital officials said. University Hospital in San Antonio said in a statement that a 66-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl at the hospital were in critical condition.
President Joe Biden, who is set to deliver remarks on the shooting this evening, issued a proclamation ordering flags to be flown at half-staff until sunset Saturday in honor of those killed in the attack.
Robb Elementary has an enrollment of just under 600 students. Earlier Tuesday, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District had said that all schools in the district were in lockdown due to gunshots in the area.
The school district instructed parents of children at the elementary school to stay away from the school and gather at the Uvalde Civic Center for “reunification.”
“Please do not pick up students at this time,” a message on the district website said. “Students need to be accounted for before they are released to your care.”
“Texans across the state are grieving for the victims of this senseless crime and for the community of Uvalde,” Abbott said in a statement.
“Cecilia and I mourn this horrific loss,” he added, referring to his wife. “And we urge all Texans to come together to show our unwavering support to all who are suffering.”
Abbott, who is scheduled to address the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Houston later this week along with former President Donald Trump, said he had instructed the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers to work with local law enforcement to investigate the shooting.
The politics of gun control in America quickly came to play.
Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said the victims were “taken at the hands of an individual who should have never had a weapon in the first place.”
“Tragedies like this will continue to leave Texas families grieving and traumatized until our state starts prioritizing our families, our safety, and our future,” he said in a statement. Today, we grieve and renew our demand for meaningful action now to end gun violence. Texas families can’t wait any longer.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit that advocates for gun control, the first half of the 2021-2022 school year was the deadliest in recent history.
There have been at least 77 incidents of gunfire on school grounds across the country, resulting in 14 deaths and 45 injuries, so far this year. Six of these incidents took place in Texas.
“We are heartbroken for everyone impacted by this senseless act of violence in a predominantly Latinx community,” Rena Estala, a volunteer with the Texas chapter of Students Demand Action, said in a statement. “School is the last place where kids should have to worry about gun violence. We need leaders at every level to prioritize gun safety now.”
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(Los Angeles Times staff writers Richard Winton in Los Angeles and Courtney Subramanian in Washington contributed to this report.)
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©2022 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
7:45 p.m. update
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — State senator briefed by Texas Rangers says 18 children, 3 adults killed in elementary school shooting.
After mass shootings in 2018 and 2019, Texas lawmakers made it easier to get guns
FORT WORTH, Texas — More than a dozen students and a teacher are dead after a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday said 14 students and a teacher were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a city west of San Antonio. A 18-year-old gun man entered the school with a handgun and possibly a rifle after abandoning his car, Abbott told reporters. The gunman is deceased and it’s believed responding officers killed him, Abbott said.
“Texans across the state are grieving for the victims of this senseless crime and for the community of Uvalde,” Abbott said in a statement.
The mass shooting is one of several in Texas in recent years, including attacks at a church in Sutherland Springs, a high School in Santa Fe, a Walmart in El Paso and in the Midland-Odessa area.
Responding to the shootings, there have been calls for Texas to do more to prevent mass shootings and tighten gun laws, but the Texas legislature has largely loosened laws related to access to firearms.
Here’s how Texas has responded to mass shootings and where gun laws stand in Texas.
2019 legislative session
The 2019 legislative session, which started in January of that year, was the first after the shootings at Santa Fe High School and the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. Twenty-six people and a pregnant woman were killed in the church shooting. Ten were killed at the High School northeast of Galveston.
Following the legislative session, Abbott held roundtables and issued a school safety plan.
During the session, lawmakers passed legislation to bolster the number of school marshals and to increase mental health resources. Senate Bill 11 aimed to hire more mental health counselors and create threat assessment teams. It also allocated roughly $100 million for schools to secure campuses and established the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium to address students’ mental health needs.
The legislature also passed a law allowing people to carry guns at places of worship, as long as the place of worship doesn’t prohibit it.
However, the legislature didn’t take steps to restrict access to guns. The National Rifle Association cheered the session as “highly successful“ after 10 gun-related bills it supported were made law.
2021 legislative session
Round tables were again held in the aftermath of the Odessa-Midland and El Paso shootings. There was hope, particularly among the El Paso delegation, that the legislature would take action to restrict access to guns, but those efforts largely fell flat.
The legislature did pass a law expanding access to guns — permitless carry, which had failed to gain traction in previous sessions. The law, often referred to by supporters as “constitutional carry,” removes the requirement for a license to carry a handgun. Texans have already been able to carry rifles without a license. People can still opt to have a license if they choose.
Two laws were passed responding to the shootings, according to the Texas Tribune. A bill creating a Texas Active Shooter Alert System by Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa, and a bill by Sen. Cesar Blanco, D-El Paso, making it a state jail felony for a person not allowed to possess a firearm to lie on a submitted form when trying to buy one.
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Former Star-Telegram reporter Tessa Weinberg contributed to this report.
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©2022 Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Visit star-telegram.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
7:40 p.m. update
INDIANAPOLIS – Governor Eric J. Holcomb is directing flags in the State of Indiana to be flown at half-staff to honor and remember the victims of the horrific tragedy in Uvalde, TX.
Per President Biden’s order, flags should be flown at half-staff immediately until sunset on Saturday, May 28. Gov. Holcomb is asking businesses and residents in Indiana to lower their flags.
7:20 p.m. update
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden prepared to address the nation Tuesday night shortly after returning to the White House from a five-day trip to Asia that was bookended by “horrific” mass tragedy.
Biden was on Air Force One Tuesday afternoon when officials said a gunman acting alone killed at least 14 students and a teacher at a Texas elementary school. His departure for Asia last week came just two days after he met with victims’ families after a hate-motivated shooter killed 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. The back-to-back tragedies served as sobering reminders of the frequency and brutality of an American epidemic of mass gun violence.
Biden directed that American flags be flown at half-staff through sunset Saturday in honor of the victims.
His remarks were set for 8:15 pm EDT in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, about an hour after his return to the White House.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was briefed on the shooting by deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley-Dillon and other members of his senior team aboard Air Force One.
Shortly before landing in Washington, Biden spoke with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott from the presidential plane “to offer any and all assistance he needs in the wake of the horrific shooting in Uvalde, TX,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield tweeted.
6:20 p.m. update
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — An 18-year-old gunman opened fire Tuesday at a Texas elementary school, killing 14 children, one teacher and injuring others, Gov. Greg Abbott said, and the gunman was dead.
It was the deadliest shooting at a U.S. grade school since the shocking attack at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, almost a decade ago.
The gunman entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun and possibly a rifle, Abbott said. Officials have not revealed a motive for the shooting, but said the shooter was a resident of the community that’s about 85 miles (135 kilometers) west of San Antonio.
Abbott said the shooter was likely killed by responding officers but that the events were still being investigated. Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Chief of Police Pete Arredondo said at a news conference that the gunman acted alone.
It was the deadliest school shooting in Texas history. It occurred four years after a gunman fatally shot 10 people at Santa Fe High School in the Houston area and less than two weeks after a gunman opened fire at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 Black shoppers and workers in what officials have described as a hate crime.
”He shot and killed, horrifically, incomprehensibly, 14 students and killed a teacher,” said the governor, adding that two officers were shot and wounded but were expected to survive.
It was not immediately clear how many people, in addition to the dead, were wounded, but Arredondo said there were “several injuries.” Earlier, Uvalde Memorial Hospital said 13 children were taken there. Another hospital reported a 66-year-old woman was in critical condition.
Robb Elementary School has an enrollment of just under 600 students, and Arredondo said it serves students in the second, third and fourth grade. He did not provide ages of the children who were shot.
A heavy police presence surrounded the school Tuesday afternoon, with officers in heavy vests diverting traffic and FBI agents coming and going from the building.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden has been briefed on the school shooting on Air Force One as he returns from a five-day trip to Asia and would continue to receive updates. Jean-Pierre said Biden will deliver remarks Tuesday evening at the White House.
Uvalde is home to about 16,000 people and is the seat of government for Uvalde County. The town is about 75 miles (120 kilometers) from the border with Mexico. Robb Elementary is in a mostly residential neighborhood of modest homes.
A Border Patrol agent who was among the first law enforcement officers on scene was shot and wounded by the gunman. The agent is hospitalized in good condition, according to a federal law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.
The tragedy in Uvalde added to a grim tally of mass shootings in Texas that have been among the deadliest in the U.S. over the past five years. One year before the Santa Fe school shooting in 2018, a gunman at Texas church killed more than two dozen people during a Sunday service in the small town of Sutherland Springs. In 2019, another gunman at a Walmart in El Paso killed 23 people in a racist attack.
The shooting came days before the National Rifle Association annual convention was set to begin in Houston. Abbott and both of Texas’ U.S. senators were among elected Republican officials who were the scheduled speakers at a Friday leadership forum sponsored by the NRA’s lobbying arm.
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Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg in Dallas, Ben Fox in Washington, Paul J. Weber in Austin and Juan Lozano in Houston contributed to this report.
ORIGINAL STORY
HOUSTON — Fifteen people were killed, including more than a dozen children, in a shooting at a Texas elementary school, Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday.
“He shot and killed horrifically, incomprehensibly, 14 students and killed a teacher,” the Texas governor said, adding that the suspect, Salvador Ramos, 18, is also dead.
After an active shooter was reported at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a predominantly Latino town about 85 miles west of San Antonio, Uvalde Memorial Hospital said in a Facebook post at 2:30 p.m. Central time that hospital staff members were caring for “several students” in the emergency room.
Uvalde Memorial received 17 injured children via ambulance or school bus, two of them dead on arrival, hospital Chief Executive Tom Nordwick said.
He said the hospital also treated a man in his mid-40s who had suffered minor injuries in the shooting.
“He just said, ‘Treat the kids,’” Nordwick said, adding that 12 children were still being treated in the ER and he couldn’t say what their condition was.
Two children were transported to a hospital in San Antonio, and another was awaiting transport, hospital officials said. University Hospital in San Antonio said a 66-year-old woman was in critical condition.
Robb Elementary has an enrollment of just under 600 students. Earlier, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District had said that all schools in the district were locked down because of gunshots in the area.
“Texans across the state are grieving for the victims of this senseless crime and for the community of Uvalde,” Abbott said in a statement. “Cecilia and I mourn this horrific loss and we urge all Texans to come together to show our unwavering support to all who are suffering.”
Abbott said he had instructed the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers to work with local law enforcement to investigate the shooting.
A Uvalde Police Department dispatcher said the scene was still active and no other information was immediately available.
The district said that the city’s civic center was being used as a reunification center.
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©2022 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
