By ZEKE MILLER and ELLIOT SPAGAT
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — President Joe Biden grieved with the shattered neighborhood of Uvalde on Sunday, mourning privately for 3 hours with anguished households of the 19 schoolchildren and two academics killed by a gunman. Confronted with chants of “do one thing” as he departed a church service, Biden pledged: “We are going to.”
At Robb Elementary College, Biden visited a memorial of 21 white crosses — one for every of these killed — and first woman Jill Biden added a bouquet of white flowers to these already positioned in entrance of the college signal. The couple then considered particular person altars erected in reminiscence of every pupil, the primary woman touching the kids’s photographs as they moved alongside the row.
After visiting the memorial, Biden attended Mass at Sacred Coronary heart Catholic Church, the place a number of victims’ households are members, and one of many households was in attendance.
Talking on to the kids within the congregation, Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller tried to assuage the fears of the kids, some showing about the identical age because the victims.
“You’ve got seen the information, you will have witnessed the tears of your dad and mom, mates,” he stated, encouraging them to not be afraid of life. “You’re the greatest reminders to us that the lives of the little ones are essential.”
As Biden departed church to satisfy privately with relations, a crowd of about 100 individuals started chanting “do one thing.” Biden answered, “We are going to,” as he received into his automotive. It was his solely public remark throughout roughly seven hours in Uvalde.
Biden later tweeted that he grieves, prays and stands with the individuals of Uvalde. “And we’re dedicated to turning this ache into motion,” he stated.
The go to to Uvalde was Biden’s second journey in as many weeks to console a neighborhood in loss after a mass taking pictures. He traveled to Buffalo, New York, on Might 17 to satisfy with victims’ households and condemn white supremacy after a shooter espousing the racist “substitute concept” killed 10 Black individuals at a grocery store.
Each shootings and their aftermath put a recent highlight on the nation’s entrenched divisions and its lack of ability to forge consensus on actions to scale back gun violence.
“Evil got here to that elementary faculty classroom in Texas, to that grocery retailer in New York, to far too many locations the place innocents have died,” Biden stated Saturday in a graduation deal with on the College of Delaware. “We’ve got to face stronger. We should stand stronger. We can not outlaw tragedy, I do know, however we are able to make America safer.”
Biden additionally met with first responders earlier than the journey again to his dwelling in Delaware. It was not clear if the group included officers who had been concerned within the quick response to the taking pictures.
Biden visited amid mounting scrutiny of the police response. Officers revealed Friday that college students and academics repeatedly begged 911 operators for assist as a police commander informed greater than a dozen officers to attend in a hallway. Officers stated the commander believed the suspect was barricaded inside an adjoining classroom and that there was not an energetic assault.
The revelation prompted extra grief and raised new questions on whether or not lives had been misplaced as a result of officers didn’t act sooner to cease the gunman, who was in the end killed by Border Patrol tactical officers.
The Justice Division introduced Sunday that it’s going to overview the regulation enforcement response and make its findings public.
“It’s straightforward to level fingers proper now,” stated Ronnie Garza, a Uvalde County commissioner, on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” earlier than including, “Our neighborhood must concentrate on therapeutic proper now.”
Mckinzie Hinojosa, whose cousin Eliahana Torres was killed Tuesday, stated she revered Biden’s choice to mourn with the individuals of Uvalde.
“It’s greater than mourning,” she stated. “We would like change. We would like motion. It continues to be one thing that occurs again and again and over. A mass taking pictures occurs. It’s on the information. Folks cry. Then it’s gone. No person cares. After which it occurs once more. And once more.”
“If there’s something if I might inform Joe Biden, as it’s, simply to respect our neighborhood whereas he’s right here, and I’m certain he’ll,” she added. “However we want change. We have to do one thing about it.”
Authorities have stated the shooter legally bought two weapons not lengthy earlier than the college assault: an AR-style rifle on Might 17 and a second rifle on Might 20. He had simply turned 18, allowing him to purchase the weapons underneath federal regulation.
Hours after the taking pictures, Biden delivered an impassioned plea for extra gun management laws, asking: “When in God’s title are we going to face as much as the gun foyer? Why are we keen to reside with this carnage? Why can we maintain letting this occur?”
Over time, Biden has been intimately concerned within the gun management motion’s most notable successes, such because the 1994 assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, and its most troubling disappointments, together with the failure to move new laws after the 2012 bloodbath at Sandy Hook Elementary College in Newtown, Connecticut.
As president, Biden has tried to deal with gun violence by govt orders. He faces few new choices now, however govt motion is perhaps one of the best the president can do, given Washington’s sharp divisions on gun management laws.
In Congress, a bipartisan group of senators talked over the weekend to see if they might attain even a modest compromise on gun security laws after a decade of largely failed efforts.
Encouraging state “purple flag” legal guidelines to maintain weapons away from these with psychological well being points, and addressing faculty safety and psychological well being assets had been on the desk, stated Sen. Chris Murphy, who’s main the trouble.
Whereas there may be nowhere close to sufficient assist from Republicans in Congress for broader gun security proposals in style with the general public, together with a brand new assault weapons ban or common background checks on gun purchases, Murphy, D-Conn., informed ABC’s “This Week” that these different concepts are “not insignificant.”
The group will meet once more this coming week underneath a 10-day deadline to strike a deal.
“There are extra Republicans desirous about speaking about discovering a path ahead this time than I’ve ever seen since Sandy Hook,” stated Murphy who represented the Newtown space as a congressman on the time of the Sandy Hook taking pictures. “And whereas, ultimately, I’ll find yourself being heartbroken, I’m on the desk in a extra vital means proper now with Republicans and Democrats than ever earlier than.”
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AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and Related Press author Darlene Superville in Washington and AP video journalist Robert Bumsted in Uvalde, Texas, contributed to this report.
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Extra on the college taking pictures in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting
