It is one of the deadliest school massacres in US history. Only the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut killed more people.
More than twelve hours after the crime, relatives were still unclear about the whereabouts of individual students. According to the New York Times, parents had to provide DNA samples to determine their relationship to the victims. Many children were taken to nearby hospitals with serious injuries.
According to investigators, the shooter entered the elementary school in the small town on Tuesday afternoon and shot himself. At least two adults were also killed. On Wednesday it was initially unclear whether the shooter was counted among the adult dead. Relatives identified one fatality as a fourth grade teacher.
Little was initially known about the background to the crime in Uvalde, a small town with around 16,000 inhabitants characterized by its Hispanic community, not far from the border with Mexico. The investigators kept a low profile. According to the media, the shooter is said to have bought the weapon used in the crime about a week ago, shortly after his 18th birthday.
According to Governor Greg Abbott, the gunman announced his plans on Facebook shortly before the crime. He initially wrote that he would shoot his grandmother, Abbott said at a press conference. His second post was that he shot his grandmother. About a quarter of an hour before arriving at the school, the 18-year-old wrote that he would shoot around in an unnamed elementary school.
According to Abbott, the shooter had no criminal record. However, it is not certain whether the gunman had any entries as a young person. That still has to be determined. Mental illnesses are not known, according to Abbott. The governor also announced that the gunman shot his grandmother in the face – she survived. At school, he then broke into a classroom that was connected to another.
According to CNN, former schoolmates assigned the shooter an Instagram profile on which a photo of two rifles had been posted a few days ago. The boy’s behavior has recently changed, the Washington Post quoted a childhood friend as saying. He lived with his mother and sometimes with his grandmother and has recently been behaving aggressively.
A manager at the fast-food restaurant where the perpetrator worked until a month ago described him to CNN as someone who avoided others and kept to himself. According to a former classmate, he rarely attended his school, Uvalde High School. They would have had sporadic contact. Days before the crime, he sent him photos of a gun and ammunition. He asked him, “Bro, why did you do that?” to which he replied, “don’t worry about it.”
An Instagram user published a chat history on her now private profile – presumably with the shooter. Both had written accordingly after he had marked them by name in a picture with weapons. In the course of time he announced that he wanted to entrust her with a “little secret”. It didn’t come to that anymore.
US President Joe Biden, who has just returned from a trip to Asia, addressed the people in an emotional speech in the White House. He announced that he will be traveling to Texas with his wife Jill in the next few days and meeting with families there.
The President once again lamented the extent of gun violence in the United States. “I’m just fed up with what’s going on,” said Biden, once again campaigning for gun law reform in the country: “As a nation, we have to ask ourselves when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby.” The idea that an 18-year-old boy could walk into a gun store and buy two assault rifles is just wrong.
Erick Estrada from the Texas Department of Public Safety spoke to CNN about the preliminary findings. The suspect initially shot the woman in his grandmother’s apartment. She was taken to a hospital in critical condition, according to CNN. The shooter then drove a car to the elementary school and caused an accident there, Estrada said. The young man then got out of the car and was wearing a protective vest and entered the school with a backpack and a gun. There he opened fire. The 18-year-old was then asked by the school’s security staff.
The elementary school was sealed off after the attack and surrounded by emergency vehicles. Television images showed stretchers being rolled out of the building. Parents wandered around looking for their children.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, a US border control officer was injured in the shooting. Accordingly, forces from the border guard stationed in Uvalde were called to help. When they arrived at the school, they were shot at by the perpetrator, who had holed up. “Riding their own lives, border control officers interposed themselves between the gunman and children to divert the gunman’s attention from potential victims and save lives,” a ministry spokeswoman said on Twitter.
A massacre in the USA leaves one again bewildered and the question of the motive to look for victims in an elementary school of all places. Shooting sprees, including in schools, occur with sad regularity in the United States. Biden ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff on all U.S. public buildings by Saturday.
Former US President Barack Obama (60) expressed his condolences to the affected families on Twitter and criticized Republicans and the gun lobby. Both had “shown no willingness to act in any way to prevent these tragedies.” Pope Francis called for an end to the “indiscriminate arms trade”. “We should all work to ensure that tragedies like this never happen again,” he said at a general audience. US celebrities such as pop singer Taylor Swift (32) and Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey (52) from Uvalde also expressed grief and sharp criticism of the lax gun laws in the USA.
The United Nations said one reason for these and other acts was the availability of weapons. “When weapons are available, there is violence and civilians pay the price,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York on Wednesday. This topic is also being debated in the United States of America.
Almost ten years ago, the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut had caused particular shocks in the USA: In December 2012, a 20-year-old shot around, killing 20 school children and six teachers. And just over a week ago, a gunman with an assault rifle opened fire in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing ten people. According to investigators, the act was racially motivated – eleven of the 13 victims were black.