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Texas elementary school shooting: 19 students killed, gunman shot grandmother before | 10 points
Texas elementary school shooting: US President Joe Biden ordered flags will fly at half-mast at the White House and other public places until Saturday as a mark of respect to the victims which include 19 children.
In a horrific mass shooting in Texas, an 18-year-old gunman, identified as Salvador Ramos, killed 19 children and 2 adults at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday, barely 10 days after the Buffalo supermarket shooting. This is the deadliest attack since the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed, according to CNN. President Joe Biden addressed the nation as he returned to the White House from his five-day Asia trip. Biden directed that American flags be flown at half-staff through sunset Saturday in honour of the victims. “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden said. “These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world," Biden said. "Why?” the US President said.
Here is what we know about the Texas school shooting:
1. The fatalities of the Texas school shooting include 19 students and 2 adults, while the number of the injured is likely to go up. The shooter was also killed by responding officers. Two police officers were shot but their injuries were not serious, Texas governor Greg Abbott said.
2. The shooting began around noon. The governor said the shooter was believed to have "abandoned his vehicle and entered into the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun, and he may also have had a rifle."
3. The school has over 500 students, mostly Hispanic and economically disadvantaged, from second through fourth grade. The school authorities called on parents not to pick up their children until all were accounted for. "Please do not pick up students at this time. Students need to be accounted for before they are released to your care. You will be notified to pick up students once all are accounted for," the school said on its website.
4. Governor Greg Abbott said the suspect acted alone. Investigators said they believe Ramos shot and killed his grandmother before going to the school. "It is being reported that the subject shot his grandmother right before he went into the school," Abbott said adding, "I have no further information about the connection between those two shootings."
5. The motive of the massacre was not immediately known.
6. University Hospital in San Antonio said it had received two patients from the shooting in Uvalde, a 66-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl, both listed in critical condition.
7. Shooter Salvador Ramos was a resident of the heavily Latino community about 85 miles (135 kilometre) west of San Antonio, reports said.
8. Flags will fly at half-mast at the White House and other public places until Saturday as a mark of respect to the victims of the Texas school shooting. "I hereby order that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, May 28, 2022," President Joe Biden said in a press release.
9. US Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday that "enough is enough" in the wake of the country's latest mass shooting. "Our hearts keep getting broken. We have to have the courage to take action," Harris said.
10. It was the deadliest such incident since 14 high school students and three adult staff were killed in Parkland, Florida in 2018 -- and the worst at an elementary school since the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut, in which 20 children and six staff were killed.
(With inputs for Reuters, AP, AFP)
