Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty
Barack Obamais mourningthe 19 studentsand two adults who died in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Barack Obama.Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty
Initially, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that 14 students and their teacher were gunned down in their classroom, but later Tuesday, Sgt. Erick Estrada of the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed the death toll had risen to 19 students and two adults, according toCNN. The shooter alsoshot his grandmother, but she had survived the attack.
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According to Abbott, the shooter, identified as Uvalde resident Salvador Ramos, is dead. The shooter opened fire at Robb Elementary School at about 11:30 a.m. after abandoning his vehicle, and it is believed police killed him.
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“It’s long past time for action, any kind of action. And it’s another tragedy—a quieter but no less tragic one—for families to wait another day,” Obama, 60, added of the horrific attack. “May God bless the memory of the victims, and in the words of Scripture, heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds.”
In December last year,Obama recalled the shootingat Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, calling it “one of the darkest days of his presidency.”
“Today we remember the children and adults who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, and the families who have endured so much grief,” Obamasaid on Twitteron the anniversary of the shooting.
In a follow-up post, Obama added, “The best way to honor them — the only way that really matters — is to fight this epidemic of gun violence and prevent even more senseless death and suffering. We can, and must, do more.”
During hisspeechaddressing the Uvalde shooting on Tuesday,President Joe Bidenalso mentioned the Sandy Hook tragedy.
“I had hoped when I became president I would not have to do this again, another massacre in Uvalde, Texas,” Biden, 79, said. “An elementary school. Beautiful, innocent second, third, and fourth graders. How many scores of little children who witnessed what happened, see their friends die, as if they’re in a battlefield for God’s sake.”
“It’s been 10 years since I stood up at a grade school in Connecticut, where another gunman massacred 26 people, including 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School,” he later added.
RELATED VIDEO: Gov. Greg Abbott Gives Update About Texas School Shooting
The Newtown Action Alliance, a gun violence prevention organization launched after the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, alsoissued a statement on Twitter saying, “We are devastated. Our hearts are breaking for Robb Elementary & Uvalde families & community. We are angry. These shootings are preventable but those whose stood with the NRA after Sandy Hook nearly 10 years ago did absolutely nothing to prevent these tragedies. We need change.”
source: people.com
