America's Gun Violence #2

Halifax2TheMax

Imagine being 10 years old and having to tell the press that you lost almost all your friends in a mass shooting at school? Anyone remember what it was like in high school or junior high to lose a classmate in a car accident or to a fatal disease like cancer or leukemia? Imagine being 10 and dealing with that trauma?

21 lost lives

Today’s newsletter contains photographs and a brief sketch of each of the 19 children. It includes the same for the two Robb teachers murdered in the attack: Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia. You can read more by clicking on the links below.

Maite Rodriguez, her mother’s only daughter, dreamed of becoming a marine biologist.

Tess Marie Mata played the same position on her softball team — second base — as her favorite Houston Astros player.

Layla Salazar sang “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” by Guns N’ Roses, with her father on their morning drives to school.

Xavier Lopez made the honor roll on Tuesday, which would turn out to be the last day of his life.

The 19 children killed that day at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, were both typical and extraordinary. To read their life stories — as journalists and family members compile them this week — is devastating. We think that it’s also necessary, as a tribute to the children and an acknowledgment of the toll of this country’s unique gun violence.

 

From left: Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio, Amerie Jo Garza, Tess Marie Mata and Jose Flores.

Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, 10: Alexandria, who went by Lexi, played softball and basketball and wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up. Her parents saw her make the honor roll with straight A’s and receive a good-citizen award at her school on the day she was killed.

Amerie Jo Garza, 10: Amerie was “a jokester, always smiling,” her father said. She liked playing with Play-Doh and spending time with friends during recess. “She was very social,” he said. “She talked to everybody.”

Tess Marie Mata, 10: Tess liked TikTok dance videos, Ariana Grande and getting her hair curled, The Washington Post reported. And she loved José Altuve, the diminutive Houston Astros star whose position she emulated. She was saving money for a family trip to Disney World once her older sister, Faith, graduated from college next year.

Jose Flores: “My little Josesito,” his grandfather called him. He was an energetic baseball and video-game enthusiast. In a photo his grandfather keeps in his wallet, Jose has a beaming smile and wore a T-shirt reading, “Tough guys wear pink.”

From left: Miranda Mathis, Maite Rodriguez, Makenna Lee Elrod, Xavier Lopez

Miranda Mathis, 11: Miranda “was very loving and very talkative,” the mother of a close friend told The Austin American-Statesman. Miranda would often ask the mother to do her hair like her friend’s.

Maite Rodriguez, 10: Maite dreamed of attending Texas A&M University to become a marine biologist, a cousin wrote on Facebook: “She was her mom’s best friend.”

Makenna Lee Elrod, 10: Makenna liked to sing and dance, play with fidget toys and practice softball and gymnastics, an aunt told ABC News. She also loved animals, and hiding notes for her family to find. She recently gave her friend Chloe a friendship bracelet.

Xavier Lopez, 10: An exuberant baseball and soccer player, Xavier also chatted on the phone with his girlfriend and made the honor roll. “He was funny, never serious,” his mother, Felicha Martinez, told The Washington Post. “That smile I will never forget. It would always cheer anyone up.”

From left: Eliana “Ellie” Garcia, Layla Salazar, Eliahana Cruz Torres, Alithia Ramirez

Eliana Garcia, 9: The second-eldest of five girls, Ellie helped around the house, reminding her grandparents to take their pills, helping mow the lawn and babysitting her younger sisters, her grandfather told The Los Angeles Times. She loved “Encanto,” dancing for TikTok videos, cheerleading and basketball.

Layla Salazar, 10: Layla also liked dancing to TikTok videos, and she won six races at the school’s field day, her father told The Associated Press. She and her dad would sing every morning on their drive to school.

Eliahana Cruz Torres, 10: Eliahana played softball and particularly looked forward to wearing her green and gray uniform, along with eye black grease. The final game of the season was scheduled for Tuesday, and she was hoping to make the Uvalde All-Star team.

Alithia Ramirez, 10: Alithia loved to draw. She wanted to become an artist, her father told a San Antonio TV station. After a car struck and killed her best friend last year, Alithia sent his parents a drawing of him sketching her portrait in heaven and her sketching his portrait on earth.

 

From left: Jackie Cazares, Annabelle Rodriguez, Jailah Silguero, Jayce Luevanos

Jackie Cazares and Annabelle Rodriguez were cousins in the same class. Jackie was the social one. “She always had to be the center of attention,” her aunt said. “She was my little diva.” Annabelle was quieter. But the girls were close — so close that Annabelle’s twin sister, who was home-schooled, “was always jealous.”

Jailah Silguero, 10: Jailah was the youngest of four children, the “baby” of the family, her father said. Her mother told Univision that Jailah liked to dance and film videos on TikTok.

Jayce Luevanos, 10: Jayce, Jailah’s cousin, would brew a pot of coffee for his grandparents every morning, his grandfather told USA Today. Friends would come over to his house, a block from the school, to play in the yard. He enjoyed making people laugh, another relative told The Daily Beast.

 

From Left: Uziyah Garcia, Nevaeh Bravo, Rojelio Torres

Uziyah Garcia, 9: Uziyah enjoyed video games and football. His grandfather told The Los Angeles Times that Uziyah “was the type of kid [who] could get interested in anything in five minutes. Just the perfect kid, as far as I’m concerned.”

Nevaeh Bravo, 10: “She’s flying with the angels now,” a cousin wrote on Twitter.

Rojelio Torres, 10, was “intelligent, hard-working and helpful,” his aunt told a San Antonio television station.

 

From left: Eva Mireles, Irma Garcia

Eva Mireles, 44: “She loved those children,” a neighbor said. Mireles had worked for the school district for about 17 years. She enjoyed running and hiking. “She was just very adventurous and courageous and vivacious and could light up a room,” a relative told ABC News.

Irma Garcia, 46: Garcia spent 23 years at Robb Elementary, five of them as Mireles’s co-teacher. She liked to sing along to classic rock tunes and help her nephew, a college student, with his homework. Garcia was known as a steadfast optimist. She enjoyed barbecuing with her husband of 24 years, Joe; he died yesterday, of a heart attack.

Today’s news

• During the hour the gunman was inside the school, parents pleaded with officers to storm in, witnesses said, and some parents tried to do so themselves.

• Officials also said that the gunman had entered the school unimpeded, contradicting reports of a confrontation with an officer.

• Senators discussed a bipartisan compromise on new gun laws, but leaders of both parties signaled skepticism. The Times asked Republican senators whether they’d support bills to strengthen background checks. Here are their answers.

• The N.R.A.’s convention in Houston starts today. Speakers include Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

Continue reading the main story

tempo_n_groove

HughFreakingDillon said:

this is something out of the fucking walking dead. this poor kid is going to be messed up for a long, long time. this is not normal. 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/27/us/robb-shooting-survivor-miah-cerrillo/index.html

I read that this morning and didn't want to post it.  That one choked me up.

mace1229

tempo_n_groove said:

Gern Blansten said:

yes you were so abused....my comment meant your assumed fantasy about having to scramble to use your weapon

It was a joke. I apologized. Move on.

Pretty sick fucking joke Hoss...  Again no one batted an eye...

Don’t think no one batted an eye. By the time I saw it, it was addressed. No need to comment further.

cblock4life

oftenreading said:

mace1229 said:

Hobbes said:

NRA is banning guns at their own convention. Laughable. I understand it’s the request of the secret service as trump will be in attendance, for his safety. Bans keep people safe, apparently. 

I think it’s horrible timing and bad taste to not move or postpone the event. But you can’t fault anyone for enforcing no guns at an event with a former president, even if it is the NRA.
Its ironic, but that’s about all.

Why should they move or postpone their event? What good would that do? The promotion of gun culture by people and organizations like the NRA causes these shootings. Whether they have the convention this week or next month makes no difference to what they believe. 

The same goes for the musicians who have pulled out of playing at the convention. Some of them have claimed it’s out of respect for the victims, but if they had any respect for victims of gun violence they wouldn’t have agreed to perform at an NRA event in the first case. They’re pulling out due to respect for their careers and their income. They don’t even have the courage to own their own bad decisions.  

you are absolutely correct.  

mace1229

HughFreakingDillon said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Gern Blansten said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Gern Blansten said:

tempo_n_groove said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

https://www.insider.com/texas-mom-ran-school-pulled-two-kids-out-uvalde-shooting-2022-5?inline-endstory-related-recommendations=

not sure if it was posted, but I think @tempo_n_groove wanted to read about this story

Thanks.  The school wasn't in very good lockdown if she was able to grab her kids from 2 different grades and get them out...

And it also backs up that the police had the gunman isolated so that she was able to do that.

No way a school on lockdown w an active shooter should have a person come in and be able to retrieve their kids and no one stopped them, someone opened a door to allow them in...

hard to stop a mother....she probably wasn't going to stop for anyone or anything

I don't see how you don't find anything wrong with what happened?

are you surmising the school wasn't really on lockdown or something? isn't lockdown procedural until the authorities get there? a school can't still be on full lockdown if the police need to get in and out

Teachers regularly prop doors open so they can take a shortcut into the building or something. Happens every day at most schools I’ve been at. You might see a staff wide email every once in a while asking people not to do it, or it’s a deduction during the fire inspection. But it’s common practice.
Sounds like that’s how this shooter got into the building and probably how the mom did too. In lockdown teachers are usually assigned certain doors to lock. But it’s meaningless if doors that are supposed to remain locked are propped open. Because no one is checking and locking those during a lockdown.

mfc2006

Absolutely sickened and horrified by the endless cycle of gun violence in this country. Ugh.

static111

Locking and not propping doors to a school open should not be our collective answer to gun violence in america as it relates to school shootings.  How lazy.  No nationalism, no white supremecy, no ease of access to guns, not social media distorting peoples views of one another on a human level.  lets just keep doing what we are doing and lock the doors JFC..none of this would ever happen if people just knew the doors to the school were locked...give me a break

mace1229

oftenreading said:

mace1229 said:

Hobbes said:

NRA is banning guns at their own convention. Laughable. I understand it’s the request of the secret service as trump will be in attendance, for his safety. Bans keep people safe, apparently. 

I think it’s horrible timing and bad taste to not move or postpone the event. But you can’t fault anyone for enforcing no guns at an event with a former president, even if it is the NRA.
Its ironic, but that’s about all.

Why should they move or postpone their event? What good would that do? The promotion of gun culture by people and organizations like the NRA causes these shootings. Whether they have the convention this week or next month makes no difference to what they believe. 

The same goes for the musicians who have pulled out of playing at the convention. Some of them have claimed it’s out of respect for the victims, but if they had any respect for victims of gun violence they wouldn’t have agreed to perform at an NRA event in the first case. They’re pulling out due to respect for their careers and their income. They don’t even have the courage to own their own bad decisions.  

I didn’t think they would, and not surprised at all that they didn’t.
It wouldn’t do any “good” or change anything. But it’s just poor taste in my opinion. 

I mean, it’s like if every year Minneapolis had a pro-cop parade. And last year it was scheduled for the same weekend the Floyd verdict came out. Would be a little poor taste to continue to hold it that weekend wouldnt you think? Would it change anything to move it? No.

mace1229

mace1229 said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Gern Blansten said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Gern Blansten said:

tempo_n_groove said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

https://www.insider.com/texas-mom-ran-school-pulled-two-kids-out-uvalde-shooting-2022-5?inline-endstory-related-recommendations=

not sure if it was posted, but I think @tempo_n_groove wanted to read about this story

Thanks.  The school wasn't in very good lockdown if she was able to grab her kids from 2 different grades and get them out...

And it also backs up that the police had the gunman isolated so that she was able to do that.

No way a school on lockdown w an active shooter should have a person come in and be able to retrieve their kids and no one stopped them, someone opened a door to allow them in...

hard to stop a mother....she probably wasn't going to stop for anyone or anything

I don't see how you don't find anything wrong with what happened?

are you surmising the school wasn't really on lockdown or something? isn't lockdown procedural until the authorities get there? a school can't still be on full lockdown if the police need to get in and out

Teachers regularly prop doors open so they can take a shortcut into the building or something. Happens every day at most schools I’ve been at. You might see a staff wide email every once in a while asking people not to do it, or it’s a deduction during the fire inspection. But it’s common practice.
Sounds like that’s how this shooter got into the building and probably how the mom did too. In lockdown teachers are usually assigned certain doors to lock. But it’s meaningless if doors that are supposed to remain locked are propped open. Because no one is checking and locking those during a lockdown.

It’s also just just teachers. Students do it all the time to sneak off campus or late friends who came late it. A school I was at several years ago a former student brought in a gun and picked a fight with a kid, using a door that was propped open. Luckily he didn’t shoot anyone, but he was seen on camera coming in with a gun.
My last school probably 50 kids a day would come in and out by the door next to my room. They’d leave, hang out down the street, get some fast food, and come back a couple hours later. Admin refused to alarm or monitor this door. And this was only one of several they used every day.
During a lockdown, no one is assigned that door because it is assumed it’s always locked during school hours, when in reality it gets propped open with a small rock or something every day.

HughFreakingDillon

let it be in poor taste and show the world who these fucking assholes are. I agree with Often wholeheartedly. they are pulling out for optics and nothing else. 

Poncier

HughFreakingDillon said:

this is something out of the fucking walking dead. this poor kid is going to be messed up for a long, long time. this is not normal. 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/27/us/robb-shooting-survivor-miah-cerrillo/index.html

Man. That poor kid (and so many others).
But also, huge kudos to her for the playing dead thing. Bright and resourceful during a time of unimaginable crisis. Not sure how many adults would have thought that through and done what she did.

mace1229

static111 said:

Locking and not propping doors to a school open should not be our collective answer to gun violence in america as it relates to school shootings.  How lazy.  No nationalism, no white supremecy, no ease of access to guns, not social media distorting peoples views of one another on a human level.  lets just keep doing what we are doing and lock the doors JFC..none of this would ever happen if people just knew the doors to the school were locked...give me a break

No one said that. People asked how did he get in so easily and how did the mom get her kids.
No one said unlocked doors is the biggest problem and the sole solution to the problem.

HughFreakingDillon

mace1229 said:

static111 said:

Locking and not propping doors to a school open should not be our collective answer to gun violence in america as it relates to school shootings.  How lazy.  No nationalism, no white supremecy, no ease of access to guns, not social media distorting peoples views of one another on a human level.  lets just keep doing what we are doing and lock the doors JFC..none of this would ever happen if people just knew the doors to the school were locked...give me a break

No one said that. People asked how did he get in so easily and how did the mom get her kids.
No one said unlocked doors is the biggest problem and the sole solution to the problem.

no one here. but it is being discussed with some seriousness by republicans. 

OnWis97

tempo_n_groove said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

this is something out of the fucking walking dead. this poor kid is going to be messed up for a long, long time. this is not normal. 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/27/us/robb-shooting-survivor-miah-cerrillo/index.html

I read that this morning and didn't want to post it.  That one choked me up.

There have been a few reads / watches that are uncomfortable to watch, like the guy who was tending to a child that told him his daughter was killed (They didn't know each other; she just dropped her friend's name). 

And EVERYONE regardless of where they stand on anything should get through something that makes them uncomfortable. It's valuable, in my opinion to do little things that can make this stuff less theoretical, especially as we become desensitized to the frequency.

Cropduster-80

tempo_n_groove said:

Cropduster-80 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Cropduster-80 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

PP193448 said:

Cropduster-80 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Gern Blansten said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Gern Blansten said:

tempo_n_groove said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

https://www.insider.com/texas-mom-ran-school-pulled-two-kids-out-uvalde-shooting-2022-5?inline-endstory-related-recommendations=

not sure if it was posted, but I think @tempo_n_groove wanted to read about this story

Thanks.  The school wasn't in very good lockdown if she was able to grab her kids from 2 different grades and get them out...

And it also backs up that the police had the gunman isolated so that she was able to do that.

No way a school on lockdown w an active shooter should have a person come in and be able to retrieve their kids and no one stopped them, someone opened a door to allow them in...

hard to stop a mother....she probably wasn't going to stop for anyone or anything

I don't see how you don't find anything wrong with what happened?

are you surmising the school wasn't really on lockdown or something? isn't lockdown procedural until the authorities get there? a school can't still be on full lockdown if the police need to get in and out

Some form of protocol was broken.  Kids and teachers lock themselves in the room and hide until law enforcement tells them it's ok.  

Now I understand why the mom did it but it put other lives in jeopardy with her doing that and other teachers allowing her and going through with it.

I am thinking worst case scenario on what could have happened.

As a parent I would have gone in, right or wrong I’d do it. 

This containment strategy reminds me of the old protocol when planes were hijacked.   The assumption was never they are going to crash the plane. Today it is. 

a school shooter is killing as many as possible and will likely kill themselves or die by police. Waiting an hour means more deaths. They aren’t taking hostages and asking for money and a van to escape.  You breach immediately 

Exactly

Cropduster-80 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Gern Blansten said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Gern Blansten said:

tempo_n_groove said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

https://www.insider.com/texas-mom-ran-school-pulled-two-kids-out-uvalde-shooting-2022-5?inline-endstory-related-recommendations=

not sure if it was posted, but I think @tempo_n_groove wanted to read about this story

Thanks.  The school wasn't in very good lockdown if she was able to grab her kids from 2 different grades and get them out...

And it also backs up that the police had the gunman isolated so that she was able to do that.

No way a school on lockdown w an active shooter should have a person come in and be able to retrieve their kids and no one stopped them, someone opened a door to allow them in...

hard to stop a mother....she probably wasn't going to stop for anyone or anything

I don't see how you don't find anything wrong with what happened?

are you surmising the school wasn't really on lockdown or something? isn't lockdown procedural until the authorities get there? a school can't still be on full lockdown if the police need to get in and out

Some form of protocol was broken.  Kids and teachers lock themselves in the room and hide until law enforcement tells them it's ok.  

Now I understand why the mom did it but it put other lives in jeopardy with her doing that and other teachers allowing her and going through with it.

I am thinking worst case scenario on what could have happened.

As a parent I would have gone in, right or wrong I’d do it. 

This containment strategy reminds me of the old protocol when planes were hijacked.   The assumption was never they are going to crash the plane. Today it is. 

a school shooter is killing as many as possible and will likely kill themselves or die by police. Waiting an hour means more deaths. They aren’t taking hostages and asking for money and a van to escape.  You breach immediately 

You should discuss the protocol with your schools then.  Take it up with them since you disagree...

It’s the police but yeah. A strategy that is more dangerous for them, which it is. I’m sure they’ll listen 

I get why they are making them do it, but I am like you, I'd want my kids out.  If you had to sit and wait that long then there is a problem and something else needs to get done, I'm with you.

If I was a teacher I would have escorted the kids out the damn window to safety.  No way I'd want to stay in there.  I'd have had my ass reprimanded, but I'd live with it.

That mom though could have gotten other kids killed by doing what she did.

Not to sidetrack the discussion but one minute before he crashed his car a teacher propped open a door. If I was betting the school has crap AC and it was hot.  Since doors seem to be a constant cause cited 

I only say that because my kids school had AC from the 70’s and the kids have started taking pictures of the thermostat on their iPads. It’s way over 80 degrees all the time. 

District can’t afford to fix it. The well funded PTA offered to replace it. That’s a no too because it’s not fair to the more disadvantaged schools in the district. Uvalde is pretty disadvantaged to begin with so they probably have no funding and no well funded PTA.  

What if it’s not even about doors, it’s about a crappy AC unit ?

That isn't what I was getting at.  If the school was indeed on lockdown a mom shouldn't be able to come in and grab her kids.  People weren't doing their jobs and that mom put others at risk.

I did think about the AC thing because that is why I mentioned fleeing out the window.

I was just reflecting generally on the fact people don’t care about schools until someone shoots them up. Then it’s about more guns, more security, more turning it into a prison. 

No one cares about the learning environment that ends up trying to educate these people who grow up to be mass shooters. School funding that makes a tolerable learning environment, preparing students, having opportunities goes a long way in reducing angry people who do this kind of stuff 

Gern Blansten

static111 said:

Locking and not propping doors to a school open should not be our collective answer to gun violence in america as it relates to school shootings.  How lazy.  No nationalism, no white supremecy, no ease of access to guns, not social media distorting peoples views of one another on a human level.  lets just keep doing what we are doing and lock the doors JFC..none of this would ever happen if people just knew the doors to the school were locked...give me a break

Preach 

cp3iverson

Teacher propped the door open 1 minute before the shooter entered through that same door.  One can argue that he would have gotten in regardless (I’m sure it’s a regular glass door that you can shatter ) but that is an incredibly tragic case of timing.  She will live with that forever I’m guessing.   

Praying for all of those kids alive or not.  

HughFreakingDillon

now those POS cops are blaming the teacher for propping open that door. it was mentioned three times in a press conference within 1 minute. 

static111

HughFreakingDillon said:

now those POS cops are blaming the teacher for propping open that door. it was mentioned three times in a press conference within 1 minute. 

mace1229 said:

static111 said:

Locking and not propping doors to a school open should not be our collective answer to gun violence in america as it relates to school shootings.  How lazy.  No nationalism, no white supremecy, no ease of access to guns, not social media distorting peoples views of one another on a human level.  lets just keep doing what we are doing and lock the doors JFC..none of this would ever happen if people just knew the doors to the school were locked...give me a break

No one said that. People asked how did he get in so easily and how did the mom get her kids.
No one said unlocked doors is the biggest problem and the sole solution to the problem.

tbergs

cp3iverson said:

Teacher propped the door open 1 minute before the shooter entered through that same door.  One can argue that he would have gotten in regardless (I’m sure it’s a regular glass door that you can shatter ) but that is an incredibly tragic case of timing.  She will live with that forever I’m guessing.   

Praying for all of those kids alive or not.  

One could also argue that if an 18 year wasn't allowed to buy 2 semi auto rifles that no one would be dead and people wouldn't be blaming a teacher for not making the school more prison like. This will clearly be the hill that all politicians opposed to any change in our gun laws will choose to die one. This one is done. Nothing for sure is changing now.