This is heartbreaking

Nothing we could have done. Not a thing.

Robb Elementary School Shooting

On May 24, 2022, a mass shooting occurred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, United States, where 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a former student at the school, fatally shot nineteen students and two teachers, while seventeen others were injured but survived. After shooting and severely wounding his grandmother at their home earlier that day, Ramos drove to the school. He fired shots for approximately five minutes outside the school, before entering unobstructed with an AR-15 style rifle through an unlocked side entrance door. He then shut himself inside two adjoining classrooms, without locking the classroom door, and killed the victims. Ramos remained in the school for more than an hour before members of the United States Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) fatally shot him after bypassing numerous local and state officers who had been in the school's hallways for over an hour.

Police officers waited more than 1 hour and 14 minutes on-site before breaching the classroom to engage the shooter. Police also cordoned off the school grounds, resulting in violent conflicts between police and civilians, including parents, who were attempting to enter the school to rescue children. As a consequence, law enforcement officials in Uvalde have been heavily criticized for their response to the shooting, and their conduct is being reviewed in separate investigations by the Texas Ranger Division and the United States Department of Justice. Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officials laid much of the responsibility for the police response on Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department (UCISD PD) Chief Pedro Arredondo, who they identified as the incident commander. Arredondo refuted the characterization of his role as incident commander, but was later fired by the Uvalde school board for his actions during the shooting. A report conducted by the Texas House of Representatives Investigative Committee attributed the fault more widely to "systemic failures and egregious poor decision making" by many authorities. The report said, "At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety... there was an unacceptably long period of time before officers breached the classroom, neutralized the attacker, and began rescue efforts."

Shortly after the shooting, local and state officials gave inaccurate reports of the timeline of events and exaggerated police actions. The Texas Department of Public Safety acknowledged that it was an error for law enforcement to delay an assault on Ramos' position in the student-filled classrooms, attributing this to the school district police chief's assessment of the situation as one with a "barricaded subject" instead of an "active shooter". Law enforcement was also aware there were injured individuals in the school before they made their entrance.

Following the shooting, Robb Elementary is set to be demolished amid its permanent closure.

When asked how much time passed between the gunman arriving at the school and the gunman being killed, Texas’ Director of Public Safety Steve McCraw offered an indefinite response.  “Forty minutes, an hour,” he said. “But I don’t want to give you a particular timeline.”  “Bottom line, law enforcement was there, they did engage immediately, they did contain him in a classroom,” he added. “They put a tactical stack together, in a very orderly way, and breached and assaulted the individual.”  It’s unclear how long the shooter was in that classroom until a tactical unit arrived on the scene. It’s also unclear how many children were in that classroom. 

BITING AND KILLING AND BITING AND KILLING AND BITING AND KILLING AND BITING AND KILLING AND

THEY LITERALLY TRAPPED THE SHOOTER IN A ROOM WITH LITTLE CHILDREN AND THEY WANT TO BE CONGRATULATED

JESUS HOPPING CHRIST

Our thoughts are with you.

Our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of the little ones and adults who lost their lives in the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. We wish the injured a full and quick recovery and want to thank the first responders and everyone who helped others in their time of greatest need.

Hours after the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead, it began.

“I’m sorry but I have to say it,” one poster wrote on a far-right message board. “We have to have another false flag shooting, killing small children.”

“Those directing false flags know the emotional response from the Buffalo shooting is wearing down for the sheep,” another person posted online. “So they did another one in Uvalde Texas to reinforce the response. Don’t be fooled. False Flag season is here.”

This script could have come from 10 years ago—and in fact, some of the same people spreading lies about Uvalde have been doing it for a decade. I have spent the past four years tracking the rise and spread of misinformation about a tragedy heartbreakingly similar to Uvalde: the Sandy Hook massacre. The haunting echoes between the two shootings don’t stop at the young victims.

The story of Lenny Pozner shows how these misinformation campaigns proceed. Two years after his son, Noah, 6, was murdered at Sandy Hook, Pozner started to receive chilling messages online. “I want to hear the ‘slaughter,’ and I won’t be satisfied until the caskets are opened,” one message read. “Prove to the world you’ve lost your son,” another demanded.

The missives in this case arrived from a woman with the online handle “gr8mom.” They were not the first, and wouldn’t be the last. After Sandy Hook, Infowars broadcaster Alex Jones had spread the same bogus theory that the shooting was a staged pretext for federal gun control, with the families of the victims in on the plot. The families fought back. In 2018, 10 of them, including Pozner’s, sued Jones for defamation. They won late last year, and soon, juries will decide how much Jones must pay them in damages.

The people who spread these conspiracies online were harder to categorize. For Pozner, who led the families’ battle against the conspiracy theorists, there was a difference between commercial conspiracists like Jones and relative unknowns like “gr8mom.” “Jones was not interested in getting to any sort of destination or truth,” he told me in an interview. But perhaps some others struggled “to carry the pain of women and children being executed.” Maybe their questions sprang from a genuine inability to understand how this could have happened. Pozner hoped that by walking these people through the reality of Noah’s life and the hell of his death, he could make them believe. Or at least make them stop.

In my new book, I caught up with “gr8mom,” who harassed the families of victims for years. Had her life gone as planned, she would have been a first grade teacher. A suburban Tulsa grandmother, she instead became a vicious conspiracy theorist, tormenting the parents of children murdered in their Sandy Hook classrooms. When we spoke, she told me she was proud of what she’d done—and is still doing.

Today, one-fifth of Americans believe all major mass shootings are staged, according to Joe Uscinski an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami who studies political conspiracy theories. These false theories will no doubt torment the families of the victims in Texas, just as they did in Sandy Hook. How could anyone, a parent no less, not only believe these delusions but make it a point to confront the families with them? Pozner wanted to know. This is the story of one of those people.

  —  Shooting at Uvalde: A conspiracy theorist explains why she says no kids were ever killed

Uvalde shooting report

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💔💔💔💔 I truly have no words for this.

Rest In Peace little ones

this isn't like my normal stuff but i really need to talk about Uvalde,TX

on may 24th 2022 an 18 year old man walked into Robb's elementary school in Uvalde, TX with a legally owned firearm and shot and killed student and teachers

as of today (may 26th) there have been 21 confirmed deaths the majority being children from the 2nd-4th grades (ages 7-10)

the man was killed either by himself or by police

he doesnt deserve to be dead. every single one lf these shooters are dead. he should pay for his crimes and live with the guilt that he murdered children

the day this country decided that killing grown children in a place they were the supposed to be SAFE in was the day that guns had more rights than people

im terrified that my former high school will be next

im terrified that my cousins' highschool and elementary schools will be next and i live in one of the states with the strictest gun regulations

i work in a fucking mall

THIS ISNT NEW

it should have ended with columbine

it should have ended with sandy hook

I don’t know what has to happen to change things here.  I am constantly shocked by the number of people who must think this is an okay by-product to never make meaningful changes to gun laws. It doesn’t make sense to me. This doesn’t reflect the country that I think America is. The America I’ve always admired. You have a problem and you solve it.  You’re on the forefront of medicine, of technology, of innovation. When there’s a world war, you are the ones we turn to! Yet on this issue, America is one of the most backward places in the world. This year there have been no school shootings in England. This year there have been no school shootings in Japan. This year there have been no school shootings in Australia. This year there have been 27 school shootings in America, and 212 mass shootings. And we are 5 months into the year.

James Corden

Miah is an eleven year old whose classroom was one of the main rooms targeted in the Texas school shooting. You can read a report of everything that she went through here. Her family started a go fund me to help pay for her therapy, donate if you can

After Sandy Hook, Republicans blamed the “mental health” boogeyman and then made it harder for people to get any healthcare and made it even easier for anyone and everyone to get guns.

After Parkland, Republicans blamed the “mental health” boogeyman and then made it harder for people to get any healthcare and made it even easier for anyone and everyone to get guns.

And now, in May of 2022 after the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Republicans are blaming mental health, doing nothing to help people access mental healthcare, and vowing to make it even easier for absolutely anyone and everyone to get guns

The Republican Party is a Death cult, wholly owned by the NRA.

18-year-old (alleged) murderer, Salvador Ramos, is dead. At this time, it is unknown if he shot himself or was killed by police.

He allegedly shot his grandmother before heading to the elementary school.

At least taxpayers won't have to house and feed him while he awaits trial. And he won't be paroled in 20 years to do it again.

Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Uvalde County, Texas. 

Robb Elementary School has an enrollment of just under 600 students, and it serves students in the second, third and fourth grade (7, 8, and 9-year-olds).

i’m from a small town close to newtown, ct where the sandy hook mass shooting happened in 2012. the entire community was broken for so long because of the senseless violence that day. but still nothing changed. the death of 20 elementary school children did nothing to change this country. now almost 10 years later we’re faced with another 18 children dead... this was preventable. i’m so beyond angry and sad and scared. 

i have a 3 year old niece with autism who recently started kindergarten and i’m terrified for her every single day. to think about her being in a situation like this... i’m struggling not to cry right now. i feel so incredibly powerless right now. but we aren’t powerless. there’s about 36 seats up for reelection this novemeber in the senate. out of those 36 about 23 seats seem to be either republican or a toss up. if you are eligible to vote and in a state where an election is taking place please vote. i cannot sit by for another year, for another mass shooting, and watch children like my niece grow up in a world where they have to accept they could be gunned down at recess. please vote. 

senate seats up for reelection

Uvalde school shooting: Houston-area students commemorate first day of school for survivors after Robb Elementary mass shooting

Uvalde school shooting: Houston-area students commemorate first day of school for survivors after Robb Elementary mass shooting

2022-09-06 10:14:17 HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Tuesday is the first day back to school for Uvalde CISD after 19 students and two teachers were killed in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School more than three months ago. To stand in solidarity with students on their first day back to school after the tragedy, Houston-area students and teachers are wearing maroon and white — the school district’s…

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Monday Musings #2: Gun Control

I can't say anything about statistics and policies and regulations that more intelligent and well informed people haven't already. But I can't not say anything, so I'll share my memories of the timeline of shootings in the USA. #guncontrol #guncontrolnow

I remember my elementary school’s first fire drill after the Westside Middle shooting in March of ’98. I was in the second grade and rumors were flying and my heart was hammering as we evacuated the building. Two preteens had killed four of their classmates and a teacher and injured another ten after pulling fire alarms and taking up posts in nearby woods. It was the second deadliest shooting at…

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