No students or staff will return to Rob Elementary, Texas, the site of last month’s tragic massacre, Ubelde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hall Harrell reaffirmed Friday.
“We’re not going back to that campus,” Harrell told a special board of trustees meeting, adding that he hopes to have a new address for the school “in the very near future.”
“Our children, our staff, we will not return.”
About a week and a half before the meeting, an 18-year-old gunman entered an elementary school and killed 19 students and two teachers in the deadliest school mass shooting in nearly a decade.
The superintendent’s assurance was followed by a crying mother pleading for second-graders set to attend Rob Elementary, speaking to the panel, saying her son had been traumatized by the violence.
The mother said, ‘Now my son is very scared of school. “What he does know now is that when he goes to another school he will be shot by bad people.”
While the traumatized community is undergoing stupid violence, many questions remain about the genocide, and authorities have often provided controversial information on how the attack unfolded. Among the vague details: how the gunman got inside.
Initially, the Texas Department of Public Safety said a teacher had opened the door – only to have the teacher close the door later when she realized there was a shooter on campus.
A teacher who made peace with death
Emilia Marin, an elementary school teacher, was walking outside the school on May 24 to help a colleague bring food for a year-end party when she saw a car crash, according to her lawyer.
What happens next is “the most frightening thing anyone can do,” his lawyer, Don Flannery, told CNN.
Marin went inside the school to report the accident and the rock left the door open, according to Flannery.
When Marin returned to the door – still in line with 911 operators – she saw her colleague running away and heard people shouting at a funeral home across the street, “She has a gun!”
Marin saw the gunman, Flannery said, so she closed the door and ran to a nearby classroom, fighting under the counter.
There Marin heard gunshots, Flannery said; First outside, then inside the school. Her 911 call was interrupted. She grabbed the chairs and then the boxes to help hide her place. She tried to calm down.
In “Frozen”, Marin received a text asking her if she was safe from her daughter. “There’s a shooter. He’s shooting. He’s here,” Marin wrote back, according to his lawyer. Moments later, Marin wrote that she could hear the police.
Marin eventually had to turn off her phone, convincing the gunman to listen to her, her lawyer said, adding that she had heard “every gunshot” at school.
“He thought he was going to come in and kill her, and he made peace with her,” Flannery said. “She thought she was going to make it live.”
The gunman targeted another classroom and never met Marin, his lawyer said. Her grandson, a student at Rob Elementary, also lived and survived. However, the shooting escalated in the days following the shooting, after officials said the gunman entered the school through a door that was left open by gunmen.
“She felt lonely, as if she couldn’t grieve,” Flannery said. She guessed second-to-herself, ‘Didn’t I do that?’ He added.
The DPS later clarified that the gunman had entered through an unlocked door. Although the whole experience has affected her mental health, Flannery said. She had to see a neurologist because “she can’t stop shaking,” he said.
“No, we watched the video, you did nothing wrong,” Flannery told investigators.
Asked if Marin would return to the classroom, Flannery said: “I don’t think she will be able to get her feet on the school campus again.”
While Marin has no plans to sue the school, police or school district, Flannery said a lawsuit was filed Thursday by the court, obtained by CNN, ignoring Daniel Defense, the maker of the gun used in the attack.
In the previous lawsuit, the petitioner did not accuse the gun manufacturer of any wrongdoing, but sought to establish whether the petitioner had any grounds to file a lawsuit against Daniel Defense. CNN has contacted Daniel Defense for a response to the filing.
‘There are many corpses’
Details of the massacre continue to appear more than a week later.
According to a transcript of yesterday’s review by the New York Times, a student inside Rob Elementary feared 911 on the day of the shooting for his life and that of his teacher.
“There are a lot of corpses,” 10-year-old student Chloe Torres told reporters, according to the paper.
The call was made at 12:10 a.m. more than 30 minutes after the shooting inside the school.
“I don’t want to die. My teacher is dead. My teacher is dead. Please send help. Send help for my teacher. She was shot but is still alive.” Torres said, according to a Times review of the transcript.
The call lasted 17 minutes and 11 minutes, and he heard gunshots, the Times reported.
The victim’s father also demanded an answer from the gun manufacturer
On Friday, Ameri Joe Garza’s father’s lawyers, 10, also demanded an answer from the gun manufacturer.
The letter, issued on behalf of Alfred Garza III, urges the manufacturer of the AR-15 style rifle used in the massacre to provide all marketing information, especially targeted tactics to adolescents and children, according to a statement from lawyers.
The statement said Garza’s Texas lawyers, Mikal Watts and Charla Aldous, worked closely with Josh Koskov, who represented the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting family in a $ 73 million deal against Remington, the maker of the AR-15 used in the 2012 school shootings. .
Alfred Garza III said in a statement, “She wants to do everything I can with her, so it will never happen to any other child again.” “I have to fight her.”
In addition to marketing and advertising strategies, advocates are asking Georgia-based Daniel Defense for “relevant information for your encouragement and encouragement for the aggressive use of these weapons; in your online shopping system; and in your communications, on any platform, with Uvalde shooters; and in mass shootings. For your awareness of the pre-use of -15 style rifles. “
“Daniel Defense has said that they are praying for the Uvale family. They should back up those prayers with meaningful action,” Koskov said.
Lawyers representing Garzaki’s mother, Kimberly Garcia, also wrote a letter to Daniel Defense, demanding that the company “secure all possible relevant information” related to the shooting, including “all possible physical, electronic, and documentary evidence.”
Daniel Defense did not respond to requests for comment from CNN.
On its website, Daniel Defense said it would “assist all federal, state and local law enforcement officers in their investigation” and called the Uvalde shooting a “misdemeanor.”
According to the Bold County Justice of the Peace, the initial death certificates for the 20 victims show that they were shot dead. CNN awaits further victim report. The shooter also died.
Survivors of the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings testify
Next week, survivors and others affected by the recent shootings in Buffalo and Ubalde will testify before the House Oversight Committee, according to the committee’s website. At least 10 people were killed when an 18-year-old gunman opened fire on a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, on May 14.
Witnesses at next Wednesday’s committee hearing will include Mia Cerillo, a fourth-grader at Rob Elementary; Felix Rubio and Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Alexandria “Lexi” Rubio was killed at Rob Elementary; Janeta Everhart, whose son Jairy Goodman was injured in Buffalo; And Dr. Roy Guerrero, Emerging Pediatrician. Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia will also testify.
The announcement of the Washington hearing came just days after a Texas state legislator set up a committee to “examine the situation” surrounding the shooting.
“The fact that we still don’t have a clear picture of what happened in Ubalde is an outrage,” said Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, in a statement Friday.
Texas State Representative Dustin Burrows, Republican Joe Moody, a Democrat, and Republican Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman have been appointed to the committee.
The state senator calls for more answers
Investigators from local, state and federal agencies say they are working to find out more about the aftermath of the shooting.
A search warrant has been issued for court records obtained by the shooter’s cellphone, car and grandparents’ home, CNN Show. The warrant gives investigators the right to download forensics of the cellphone – which was located next to his body – in search of the object.
However, officials responded quickly enough to neutralize the gunmen, and some law enforcement officials continued to be criticized for their lack of transparency in the aftermath of the shooting.
According to a timeline released by the Texas DPS, children inside the classroom with guns had made several 911 calls, all while police were deployed outside the room.
The Texas state legislator raised questions at a news conference Thursday that information from 911 calls from inside Rob Elementary had been properly relayed to responders at the scene.
State Sen. Roland Guterres said he spoke with the agency that regulates 911 calls, the State Emergency Communications Commission, and that 911 calls were handled and relayed by the city’s police force at the scene. However, it is not clear whether the information was sent to the school district police chief who was the commander of the incident at the scene.
“They were notified by police and state agencies that I did not know who I was talking to,” Guterres said.
Guterres said he wanted to know more about what was going on at the school that day.
“I want to know where the police were in that room. I want to know how many policemen I had there, how many state soldiers there were. I want to know how many state troops were outside. I want to know how many federal officers were inside for 19 minutes. Meaning for 45 minutes, “Guterres told reporters.
“I especially want to know who was receiving the 911 calls,” he said.
CNN has contacted the State Emergency Communications Commission, Uvalde Police and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District for comment on Guterres’ statement.