After the school massacre that left 21 dead in Uvalde, Texas, surviving children reported extensively on the incident for the first time. Several students apparently narrowly escaped death. US President Joe Biden and his wife will visit the crime scene.
“You’re all going to die,” said 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos as he entered the classroom, 10-year-old Samuel Salinas told ABC News about last Tuesday’s attack. Then Ramos shot and probably aimed at him, but a chair deflected the bullet. Samuel was hit in the leg by a shrapnel. “I played dead so he wouldn’t shoot me,” the boy said in the interview.
Eleven-year-old Miah Cerrillo told CNN in an unfilmed testimony that she smeared herself with the blood of a dead classmate lying next to her and pretended to be dead. The girl was injured in the shoulder and head by shrapnel in the attack in the small Texan town.
One of her two teachers in the classroom tried to close the classroom door, but the shooter was already there, Miah said, according to CNN. The attacker looked at the teacher and said “good night”. Then he shot her and aimed at her colleague and some students.
Police in Uvalde admit mistakes
Using the dead teacher’s phone, the girl and a friend managed to call the police: “Please come, please come,” they pleaded when they called, the eleven-year-old reported.
At that point, she assumed that the police hadn’t arrived at the scene of the crime. Later she found out from adults that the police were already there. “Why didn’t they come in, why didn’t they save us?” she asked the CNN reporter, crying.
The police have now admitted to mistakes. Texas Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said it was the “wrong decision” not to earlier storm the classroom where the gunman was holed up with children.
Nightmares and hair loss: children in shock
A student named Daniel told the Washington Post that even though his teacher was bleeding on the floor, she kept telling the kids, “‘Keep calm. Stay where you are. Don’t move.'” No one shouted while they were waiting for the police.
According to the report, Daniel has not been able to sleep alone since the act of violence and is tormented by nightmares. His mother explained that he and his classmates would have to deal with the terrible experience “their whole lives”.
According to Samuel, he also has nightmares about the attacker and doesn’t want to go back to school for the time being. His classmate Miah’s hair has been falling out since the terrible day. Her mother, Abigale Veloz, set up a fundraising website to fund medical and psychological help for her daughter. As of Saturday morning, more than $340,000 had already been raised.
US President Biden and his wife Jill announced a visit to Uvalde for Sunday. Vice President Kamala Harris said at the funeral of one of the victims of a racist gun attack in Buffalo, “We will not be divided and frightened by those driven by hate.” Biden’s plan to tighten gun laws has so far failed due to resistance from Republicans in the US Congress.
