About 19 children and two adults, were killed after a gunman open fire at an elementary school in Texas, on Tuesday, authorities said.
According to police, the gunman was shot and killed by officers on the spot.
“The updated numbers that they gave me, as of now, they told me 19 students, two adults, and then we also have the shooter that was deceased,” Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Erick Estrada told CNN’s Don Lemon on Tuesday night.
The gunman entered Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, at 11:32 a.m. local time after killing his grandmother and wrecked his car near the school, according to authorities. He opened fire on “children, teachers, whoever was in his way.”
“He was shooting everybody,” the official said.
As of Tuesday night, the gunman’s grandma, according to Estrada, remained in critical condition.
Multiple cops were shot by the suspect, who was wearing body armor. He was later shot and killed at the scene.
The gunman, according to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, was an 18-year-old man from Uvalde, roughly an hour and a half west of San Antonio. He claimed the suspect, Salvador Ramos, got out of his car, went inside the school with a pistol and probably a rifle, and “horribly, incomprehensibly” began fire.
According to two law enforcement sources, who spoke to CBS, the suspect possessed a pistol, an AR-15 assault rifle, and high capacity magazines.
Arredondo, who verified the suspect’s death, said investigators believe the suspect acted alone.
In a speech aired on Tuesday night, President Joe Biden denounced the horrible attack.
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“I had hoped when I became president I would not have to do this — again,” the president said. “Another massacre. Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school. Beautiful, innocent second, third and fourth graders. And 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. They’ll live with it the rest of their lives.”
Customs and Border Protection personnel were among the law enforcement officers who exchanged gunfire with the gunman, according to CBS News. One CBP agent received a head wound. That agent has been admitted to the hospital and is doing well.
“U.S. Border Patrol Agents responded to a law enforcement request for assistance regarding an active shooter situation inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Upon entering the building, agents and other law enforcement officers faced gunfire from the subject, who was barricaded inside,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Marsha Catron Espinosa told CBS News in a statement.
The Uvalde Memorial Hospital earlier stated that it received 13 children for treatment via ambulance and buses, and that two of those who arrived at the hospital were deceased. A second hospital stated it is caring for a 66-year-old woman in critical condition and a 10-year-old girl in good health, as well as a 10-year-old girl in fair condition and a 9-year-old girl. Another hospital reported that it was caring for two people, both of whom were in serious condition.
The latest shooting comes just days after a teen gunman obsessed with the white supremacist ideology known as replacement theory, opened fire at a Buffalo supermarket, killing ten people and injuring three more, almost all of whom were Black, in one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent American history.
Payton S. Gendron, 18, of Conklin, a small town in New York’s rural Southern Tier, was confirmed by officials as the gunman. Mr. Gendron traveled almost 200 miles to carry out his heinous attack, which he also livestreamed, according to authorities, in a disturbing video broadcast that appeared to promote his dark objective.
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