Texas primary school shooting: Nineteen young children and two adults have been killed in a shooting at an elementary school in southern Texas.
The 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde before being killed by law enforcement officials, officials said.
Investigators say the suspect was armed with a firearm, an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and powerful magazines.
The teenager is accused of shooting his grandmother when the incident began.
Local media reported that he may have been a high school student in the area.
Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police chief Pete Arredondo said the shooting started at 11:32 local time on Tuesday, adding that investigators believed the attacker was “alone in the crime”.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the shooter, whom he called Salvador Ramos, left the car before entering the school to open fire in a horrific, mysterious manner.
One of the adults killed by the teacher, who has been announced in the American media as Eva Mireles. Her page on the school district website said she had a daughter in college and loved to run and climb mountains.
Just under 500 students enrolled in a full-time Spanish school located 85 miles (135km) west of downtown San Antonio.
Robb Elementary teaches second, third and fourth grade students, ranging in age from seven to ten.
The Associated Press reports that an American Border Patrol officer who was nearby when the shooting started rushed to school and shot dead a gunman, who was behind barricades.
The Border Patrol is a government agency that oversees the US ports of entry. Uvalde, less than 80 miles from the border with Mexico, is home to the Border Patrol station.
Border guards were reportedly shot during an exchange of gunfire. Another agent was shot in the head, officials said, adding that both were in a stable condition in hospital.
According to a CBS News report, the attacker was wearing body armor while doing so. An 18-year-old man accused of assaulting a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, on May 14 was also wearing body armor and carrying a self-propelled rifle – both for sale in the US.
Uvalde Memorial Hospital wrote on Facebook earlier that 13 children had been rushed to hospital “by ambulance or by bus”.
A 66-year-old woman and 10-year-old girl are in a critical condition in a hospital in San Antonio, officials from University Health Hospital said.
In just a few blocks from Robb Elementary School, a small vigil was held for the victims and survivors of the attack.
Karla Bohman’s voice cracked as she told the group about a family friend her young daughter, who attends the school, who is among those whose whereabouts are unknown.
“They do not know if you have been operated on or if you are one of the victims but they know you are a victim because you are missing,” cried Bohman. “I can’t believe this.”
Cheryl Juhasz, a resident of Uvalde, wept silently during the prayer.
“You can’t understand such evils. No matter where it happens, but it gets harder when it happens at home.”
In a White House speech, U.S. President Joe Biden said he was “sick and tired” in response to a mass shooting, as he wanted to control the guns.
“How many little children have seen what happens – they see their friends die, as if they were on the battlefield, for God’s sake,” he said. “They will live with it for the rest of their lives.”
He ordered that the flags of the White House and other American organization buildings fly high in honor of the victims in Uvalde.
The last day of student classes in the school district was scheduled for Thursday. But all classes and activities are now canceled for the rest of the year.
School shootings have become an ongoing emergency in the US, with 26 recorded last year, according to EdWeek, a trade education textbook.
Functional shooting exercises are a common part of school curriculum, from elementary to high school.
The 2012 shooting incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was such a deadly attack. 26 of the dead were between the ages of five and six.
Speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate in Washington DC on Tuesday, Democratic Alliance Senator Chris Murphy urged his colleagues to pass a gun control law.
“These children were not unlucky,” he said. “This is only happening in this country. There is nowhere else, no place for young children going to school thinking they might be shot that day.”
But Texas Senator Ted Cruz, of the Republic, has rejected calls for gun control. He said the ban on the rights of “law-abiding citizens … does not work. It does not work properly. It does not prevent crime.”
Guns over car crashes became the leading cause of death for American children and adolescents by 2020, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month.
On Monday, an FBI report found that “active shooter” attacks have doubled since the start of the coronavirus in 2020.