Texas shooting: Governor Abbott issues disaster declaration for Uvalde as funeral services begin

Services are planned for 11 children and their teacher Irma Garcia this week

Texas police admit ruling gunman inactive was ‘the wrong decision’

Families and community members have gathered to remember the 19 children and two adult teachers who were killed in last Tuesday’s massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, with funerals beginning to take place.

All 21 victims will be buried between now and mid-June, authorities have said, with funerals held on Tuesday for Amerie Jo Garza and Maite Rodriguez, both 10 years old. About a dozen services are planned for this week alone.

The investigation into the Uvalde massacre is continuing with revelations that the school district’s law enforcement agency has not responded to interview requests with the Texas Rangers as investigators probe the response.

Recently released footage from outside the school captures a 911 dispatcher relaying information from a child who called emergency operators, “advising he is in the room, full of victims” – again raising questions about the police decision not to storm the classroom.

Governor Greg Abbott has meanwhile issued a disaster declaration for Uvalde allowing the Texas Division of Emergency Management to provide critical assistance.

Key points

• Texas officials: Uvalde school police chief has not responded to follow-up interview requests
• Greg Abbott issues disaster declaration for grieving town
• Funeral services begin for first Uvalde victims
• Children were calling for help as police waited outside, 911 dispatch reveals
• Biden laments ‘devastation’ of US gun violence

[1 June 2022 04:52 · Alisha Rahaman Sarkar]

Uvalde police have ‘stopped cooperating’ with school shooting probe

Uvalde’s police department and Independent School District police force have reportedly stopped cooperating with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s investigation into the 24 May massacre.

Officials at both agencies decided to pull their assistance last week after Texas DPS Director, Colonel Steven McCraw, said that officers made “the wrong decision” in waiting outside the classroom rather than immediately storming it, says ABC News.

Salvador Ramos, 18, used an AR-15-style assault rifle to murder 19 children and two teachers at the Robb Elementary School, while police waited in a corridor outside before eventually forcing entry and killing him.

Graeme Massie reports.

[1 June 2022 05:11 · Alisha Rahaman Sarkar]

Ten-year-old held for threatening school shooting in Florida

In the wake of the Uvalde massacre, a fifth-grade student was arrested after he allegedly threatened to conduct a mass shooting in Florida.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office said they were tipped off about a threatening text message sent by a 10-year-old student at Patriot Elementary School in Cape Coral on 28 May.

“The School Threat Enforcement Team was immediately notified and began analytical research. Due to the nature of the incident, the Youth Services Criminal Investigations Division assumed the case,” the statement said.

Police then interviewed the child and subsequently arrested him. He was charged with “making a written threat to conduct a mass shooting”.

[1 June 2022 05:24 · Alisha Rahaman Sarkar]

Police chief blamed for botched response ‘not be sworn in as council member’

The school district police chief blamed for officers not storming the fourth-grade classroom where 19 children were killed last week in Texas will not be sworn into the council as scheduled.

Pedro “Pete” Arredondo was elected to Uvalde City Council with nearly 70 per cent of the vote on 7 May and was due to be sworn in on Tuesday after campaigning on community outreach, as the Uvalde Leader-News reported earlier this month.

In an announcement on Monday, however, Uvalde mayor Don McLaughlin said Mr Arredondo would not be sworn in at a special council meeting on Tuesday

.Earlier on Friday, without identifying the police chief by name, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety Col Steven McCraw acknowledged during a press conference that the Uvalde police chief’s decision was “not the right” one.

“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision,” Col McCraw said of the decision. “It was the wrong decision. Period. There’s no excuse for that.”

Gino Spocchia has more.

[1 June 2022 05:47 · Alisha Rahaman Sarkar]

Salvador Ramos’s family appeals for cash donations

The family of Texas school shooter Salvador Ramos has sought help to pay the medical bills of his grandmother, who was the gunman’s first victim on 24 May.

Ramos’s aunt Natalie Salazar sought help for her mother Celia “Sally” Gonzales, who was “shot in the face and left to die alone in her home by her very own grandson”.

Ms Salazar has set up a fundraiser on GoFundMe to raise $30,000 (£23,770) to pay for the expenses of her mother who has already undergone four major surgeries and is expected to go through several more.

Shweta Sharma reports.

[1 June 2022 06:25 · Alisha Rahaman Sarkar]

Gun control: Biden sees chance of ‘rational’ Republican approach

President Joe Biden on Monday said that the “second amendment was never absolute” and that, after the Texas elementary school shooting, there may be some bipartisan support to tighten restrictions.

“I think things have gotten so bad that everybody’s getting more rational, at least that’s my hope,” Mr Biden told reporters.

Faced with chants of “do something” as he departed a church service in Uvalde, Mr Biden pledged: “We will.”

“I’ve been pretty motivated all along. I’m going to continue to push and we’ll see how this goes,” the president said after returning to Washington.

[1 June 2022 08:11 · Alisha Rahaman Sarkar]

Gunman’s grandmother was teacher’s aide at school where shooting unfolded

The grandmother of Salvador Ramos, the gunman who killed 19 children and two adults in a mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last Tuesday, worked as a teacher’s aide there, a new report said.

Ramos first shot his grandmother Celia “Sally” Martinez Gonzales, 66, in the face before stealing the family truck and driving to the school just before midday.

“His grandmother worked in one of those classrooms a lot of the time,” the friend, who remained anonymous, was quoted as saying to The New York Post.“She knows a lot of the kids who died and was close to them.”

Sravasti Dasgupta has more.

[1 June 2022 08:45 · Alisha Rahaman Sarkar]

Hundreds pay respects in Uvalde at school, funeral homes

Throngs of people carrying stuffed animals, flowers and messages swarmed Geraldine Street to pay respect to the 19 children and two teachers killed in the mass shooting attack last week.

Lisa Camarillo, 38, drove two hours from Laredo with her sons, Oscar and Jacob, who is the same age as most of the young victims who died in their class when Salvador Ramos, 18, attacked the school.

“I’m lost for words,” Ms Camarillo told The Independent, explaining that she came with her boys to Uvalde to “pay my respects for these families because this is something that should never have happened – especially not here at school”.J

Just seconds away on the same street in Uvalde, mourners held one of the first visitations for those students, for 10-year-old Amerie Jo Garza, at Hillcrest Funeral Home in advance of a rosary later that evening and funeral Mass on Tuesday – exactly one week after she was gunned down in her fourth-grade classroom.

Sheila Flynn reports from Uvalde:

[1 June 2022 09:16 · Alisha Rahaman Sarkar]

Andy Murray voices anger after Texas school shooting

Andy Murray has shared his feeling of anger over the “unbelievably upsetting” Texas school shooting.

Last Tuesday, an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two adults after storming an elementary school in the city of Uvalde.

Two-time Wimbledon champion Murray grew up in Dunblane and was a student at the town’s school when a gunman killed 16 pupils and a teacher in 1996.

[1 June 2022 10:33 · Gino Spocchia]

Former attorney general calls AR-15s ‘killing machines'

George W Bush’s attorney general has appeared to support US President Joe Biden and others in calling for a ban on AR-15s after 21 people were killed with the weapon in Uvalde, Texas.

Speaking with CNN’s John Berman on Tuesday, former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said AR-15s were “killing machines” and echoed comments made by Mr Biden a day earlier saying there was “no rational basis” for owning such a weapon.

“The AR-15, these are killing machines,” said Mr Gonzales, although he admitted that a complete ban on the firearm was unlikely.

[1 June 2022 11:30 · Gino Spocchia]

Autopsy reports could take months, Uvalde officials say

The final autopsy reports from all 21 victims of last week’s mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, could take three to four months to be released, the Uvalde County Justice of the Peace has said.

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Eulalio “Lalo” Diaz Jr declined to discuss the preliminary results of autopsies and said many months will be needed for the final reports.

The law official also explained that the 21 victims were first sent to the San Antonio medical examiner’s office – which is standard for mayor crimes – before being taken to funeral homes in Uvalde and elsewhere.

Uvalde only has two funeral homes, Mr Diaz said, so many bodies were sent to out-of-town funeral homes. Officials have been working to help families with visitations in those circumstances.

Many embalmers and morticians have arrived in Uvalde from across Texas to help the funeral homes and community respond to the shooting, NBC News reported earlier this week.

Pallbearers carry the coffin of Amerie Jo Garza (REUTERS)