It was a scene of confusion and pain when the screams of a family were heard from the parking lot of a school where nineteen young children and two adults were killed in a Texas school shooting.
On Tuesday afternoon, a teenager armed with two assault rifles opened fire on children and teachers in an attack on one of the deadliest American schools of the decade in Yuvalde, Texas.
The shocking act of violence, which has ripped yet another American town to pieces, has prompted calls for greater gun control across the country. As the news spread, frantic parents waited to find out if their children were safe.
“No one is telling me anything,” said Ryan Ramirez, the parent of a fourth-grade student. “And one of the parents said that there are kids possibly held at the funeral home. That’s what brought me here – to find out what’s going on.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the 600 children who attended elementary school ranged from five or six to about 12.
Distraught families gathered at a local civic centre and took to social media to mourn and make desperate requests for help in finding the missing children.
Soon after dawn, the names of those killed in the attack on Rob’s Elementary School on Tuesday started appearing. In the community centre, a man walked away shouting on the phone. “she’s gone,”
Manilenfro told the AP that he learned that his grandson, eight-year-old Uzziah Garcia, was among those killed.
“We started throwing football together, and I taught him the pass pattern. He was a speedy guy, and he was very good at catching the ball,” Renfro recalls. “There was one particular piece they think they remember, and they did the same as we rehearsed.”
The murder was of a white man who was a racist mob published online. It happens within ten days when a shooter kills ten blacks—at a grocery store in Buffalo, NY. Texas’ 4,444 gun control is one of the least restrictive in the country.
“There is no minimum age for children to own a gun in Texas,” said John Rosenthal of Stophandgun Violence, a group working to prevent gun violence through education, public awareness and effective law enforcement was told.”