Texas Governor Greg Abbott is booed as he visits Uvalde school: ‘Shame on you’

‘Our children are under constant attack in this community. We need help’

Texas governor Greg Abbott faced a jeering crowd on Sunday as he visited the site of the school shooting in Uvalde.

Last Tuesday, 21 people including 19 children were killed at Robb Elementary School after 18-year-old Salvador Ramos went on a shooting spree.

The governor and his Republican colleagues have faced criticism in the aftermath of the shooting for the state’s gun laws, which facilitate the easy availability of weapons.

On Sunday, Mr Abbott arrived to meet president Joe Biden, who was also visiting the shooting site.

As soon as the governor arrived and wheeled past the memorial that had been set up for victims of the shootout, several people in the crowd started jeering and booing at him.

One man could be heard shouting: “We need change, governor.

“Our children are under constant attack in this community. We need help.”

Another voice in the crowd could be heard shouting “shame on you, Abbott”, according to Reuters.

At a press conference on Friday, Mr Abbott said that earlier statements he had made about law enforcement’s quick reaction to the massacre had been wrong, but that he had just repeated what he had been told.

His admission came hours after a top Texas police official admitted that officers in Uvalde made the “wrong decision” in waiting outside the classroom that was the site of the shootout rather than storm it.

“Law enforcement is going to earn the trust of the public by making sure they thoroughly and exhaustively investigate exactly what happened,” Mr Abbott said on Friday.

On Wednesday, the day after the attack, Mr Abbott had claimed that the police had prevented an even worse tragedy with their “quick response” and praised their actions.

Texas has seen eight mass shootings in the last 13 years as gun laws have been eased in the state, reported the Texas Tribune.

The state expanded gun laws as late as September last year and brought in laws that allowed more people to possess handguns.

The most recent law allows gun owners to openly carry a handgun without going through the requirements of needing a licence, background check or any training.