Texas officials deflect questions on ‘missing hour’ when gunman was in school – as it happened

That’s all for our live coverage for today. Here are some updates and links from today’s reporting:

• Texas law enforcement agencies are coming under scrutiny over their response, after it emerged that the gunman remained barricaded inside a classroom for up to an hour before his rampage was ended.
• The death toll from the Uvalde school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers reached the campus’ extended family Thursday, when the husband of one of the slain teachers died of a heart attack.
• More tributes have poured in for the 19 students and two teachers killed in the shooting.
• The Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz confronted a reporter and angrily left an interview after he was asked why school shootings happen so often in the US.
• The gunman allegedly sent a series of text messages to a 15-year-old girl in Germany moments before he carried out his deadly attack, CNN and German media reported.
• Police have arrested a Texas high school student in the Dallas area after semi-automatic weapons were found in his car, one day after the Robb elementary school massacre.
• Democratic senator Chris Murphy has called for a “popular uprising of citizens” to pressure Republicans to support gun laws following the Uvalde massacre.

Some scheduled speakers and performers have pulled out of the NRA convention scheduled for this weekend in Texas, though Texas governor Greg Abbott, US Senator Ted Cruz, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem and former president Donald Trump were all still scheduled to attend.

US Senator John Cornyn and Congressman Dan Crenshaw, both from Texas, were originally supposed to speak on Friday but no longer will be attending, though their staff said it was due to scheduling issues, the AP reports. Some, however, have canceled in response to the school shooting:

Some scheduled speakers and performers have backed out, including American Pie singer Don McLean, who said “it would be disrespectful” to go ahead with his act in the aftermath of the country’s latest mass shooting.

Country music singer Larry Gatlin, who pulled out of planned appearance at the event, said he hopes “the NRA will rethink some of its outdated and ill-thought-out positions”.

More on the outrage over the NRA’s gathering here:

The Uvalde school district had an extensive safety plan in place for mass shootings, raising further questions about why authorities were unable to prevent the killings of 19 students and two adults, NBC reports:

The death toll suggests that even security plans that appear to be comprehensive and up to the latest research-based standards may have gaps and ultimately fall short of preventing the worst-case scenario, experts said.

“We can do everything we can to mitigate and prevent school shootings but we are never going to stop these events from happening 100% of the time, because evil exists,” said Kathy Martinez-Prather, director of the Texas School Safety Center, a program at Texas State University that helps districts develop safety plans and makes sure they are meeting requirements outlined in state laws.

“That said, it is important that we have plans in place, and training and drilling on that plan so that if an event happens at our schools we are ready and prepared to mitigate as much loss of life as possible, or to mitigate it 100%.”

More here in this thread on the training that school officers are required to undergo in Texas:

State police say the 18-year-old gunman had no criminal record, no history of mental illness treatment and no obvious signs he was a danger to the community, the AP reports.

As the Washington Post noted in its coverage today, although conservatives and commentators across the political spectrum often focus on “mental illness” after massacres, research has consistently shown that a very small percentage of violent acts can be linked to mental health challenges:

Despite public perception and misleading commentary from many elected officials, decades of research have found that people with mental illness are responsible for a tiny fraction of interpersonal and other gun violence.

From a 2019 McClatchy fact check of Donald Trump, who suggested without evidence that mental illness was a main cause of gun violence:

Just 3-5% of violent acts can be attributed to mental health problems, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, whereas mentally ill people are more than 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than are the general population.

We have more details on Joe Garcia, who died of an apparent heart attack two days after the Robb elementary school gunman killed his wife, 46-year-old Irma Garcia, a teacher who was sheltering with her students.

Guadalupe “Joe” Garcia – the husband of 46-year-old Irma Garcia, who was shot and killed while sheltering children in her classroom – died two days after the mass killing that shattered his family, a cousin of his wife confirmed on a verified GoFundMe page.

The Garcias had been together for more than 30 years. They were high school sweethearts before marrying and having four children, the cousin, Debra Austin, wrote.

“I truly believe Joe died of a broken heart and losing the love of his life … was too much to bear,” Austin wrote.

The Garcias’ nephew, John Martinez, said via Twitter that the couple’s children – ages 13, 15, 19 and 23 – had now lost both parents.

Irma Garcia taught fourth grade at Robb. On her profile on the school’s website, she wrote that she and Joe, 48, enjoyed barbecuing, listening to music, and vacationing at the nearby community of Concan, which sits along Texas’ Frio River.

The couple’s first child – one of two boys – was completing boot camp with the Marines, and their second, another son, was attending Texas State University, according to the profile. The two youngest children, both daughters, are a high school sophomore and a seventh grader.

A dispatch from the Guardian’s Dani Anguiano who is reporting from Uvalde:

The tears started before anyone even spoke. Inside a Uvalde county building that usually hosts the rodeo in this part of south-west Texas, young children and parents cried and held each other. Together, they waited for a group of pastors to offer some words of comfort for their unfathomable loss.

This week in Uvalde began with a mood of celebration. The high school graduation was to be held on Friday – giant senior portraits lined the lawn outside city hall. Younger children were wrapping up the school year as well, attending classroom parties and awards ceremonies. But on Tuesday, life in this largely Latino town was upended when a gunman barricaded himself in an elementary school classroom and slaughtered 19 children and two teachers.

With all schools in the district cancelled for the remainder of the year and the town mourning for those it lost, hundreds of people came to a vigil at the Uvalde County Fairplex arena on Wednesday. There, pastors, seated on a stage on the dirt normally reserved for horses, tried to offer solace to their community.

“Pray for those children that saw what happened to their friends … pray for each of us as we help them,” said Pastor Tony Grubin, feeling nervous as he addressed the crowd of adults and children, many of them wearing red school shirts. “Evil will not win.”

The AP has more details on Jacklyn Cazares, a nine-year-old girl who was killed in the shooting alongside her cousin, Annabelle Rodriguez:

Jacklyn Cazares hadn’t yet reached her 10th birthday, but she was already a tough-minded “firecracker” always looking to help people in need, her father said. Jacklyn and her second cousin, Annabelle Rodriguez, were especially tight with three other classmates at Robb elementary school.

“They are all gone now,” Javier Cazares said. “All her little best friends were killed too.”

Jacklyn would have turned ten on 10 June. Despite her young age, she was equal parts tough-minded and compassionate.

“She had a voice,” her father said. “She didn’t like bullies, she didn’t like kids being picked on. All in all, full of love. She had a big heart.”

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More about the victims here:

As criticisms mount over the police response to the massacre, one mother who was outside of the school as the attack was unfolding says that officers handcuffed her after she urged police to enter.

Angeli Rose Gomez, who has children in the second and third grade in the school, told the Wall Street Journal she drove 40 miles to the school when she heard there was a shooting and that when she arrived, “The police were doing nothing. They were just standing outside the fence. They weren’t going in there or running anywhere.”

She told the paper that after a few minutes of her urging officers to act, federal marshals approached and put her in handcuffs, alleging that she was being arrested for interfering in an active investigation. She said she was released after she talked to Uvalde police officers she personally knew who convinced the marshals to let her go. At that point, she said she entered the school and got her two children.

Gomez also told the Journal that after the gunman was killed, she saw police use a Taser on a local father who was approaching a bus to find his child. Gomez described it this way:

They didn’t do that to the shooter, but they did that to us. That’s how it felt.”

Officials have not offered a clear explanation as to why the gunman was in the school for up to an hour before he was stopped and killed, even while officers were on scene. Authorities admitted that police officers had assembled outside the room where the gunman was located, but did not make any attempt to break through the door during that hour. Instead, they decided to pull back and wait until a specialist tactical unit arrived, while evacuating other children and staff from the building. More on the police response here:

Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said the White House was “disappointed” that Republicans in the Senate blocked the domestic terrorism prevention bill that the Democratic-controlled House last week.

We need Congress to act. We need Congress to advance commonsense measures that we know will save lives.

She later added, “Commonsense gun safety laws work. We know this. They save lives. The public supports this. They are behind this.”

A reporter asked whether Biden would be doing anything differently to reflect the urgency of the gun violence crisis, the press secretary responded, “The president has already declared gun violence to be a public health epidemic. This is a president who has been working on gun violence, comprehensive gun reform since he was a senator.”

When the reporter followed up and asked whether it was indictment of Biden that he has been involved in the issue for so long and so little has changed, she said, “He understands we need to do more, but Congress also has to act ... The president is doing everything that he can to get this done.”

The White House is declining to weigh in on the concerns about the Texas law enforcement response to the school shooting.

Asked at the briefing whether Joe Biden would call for an investigation into police’s actions at the shooting, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, responded: “The president has the utmost respect for the men and women of law enforcement ... We won’t pre-judge the results from here at this time.”

The gunman was in the school for up to an hour before he was killed, even while officers were on scene, and officials have not offered a clear explanation of the timeline or what police were doing during that hour.

Asked about the NRA convention scheduled to begin in Texas, Jean-Pierre said:

It’s not about the convention. What is inappropriate is that the leadership of the National Rifle Association has proven time and time again that they are contributing to the problem of gun violence, not trying to solve it … [They are] marketing weapons of war to adults. They don’t represent gun owners who know we need to take action. The NRA and their allies have stood in the way of [gun safety measures]. It is shameful.

About the response from some Republicans calling for more armed people, the press secretary said, “If more guns were the solution, we’d be the safest country in the world.”

Hi all - Sam Levin here, taking over our live coverage:

The White House has announced that Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will be traveling to Uvalde, Texas on Sunday to “grieve with the community”. Officials did not have further details on the visit, though a press briefing is due to start momentarily. Follow along here for updates.

Here are today’s developments so far from Tuesday’s mass shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two teachers:

• Investigators at an afternoon media briefing were unable to say why the gunman was not confronted during a “missing hour” between entering the school and being killed by a SWAT team.
• Parents and other locals expressed distress at the apparent hesitation of law enforcement to storm the school, with some having begged officers to move in as the massacre was still ongoing.
• However, US Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz said agents “didn’t hesitate” when responding to the shooting. “They came up with a plan. They entered that classroom and they took care of the situation as quickly as they possibly could,” he told CNN.
• Democratic senator Chris Murphy called for a “popular uprising of citizens” to pressure Republicans to support gun laws following the shooting.
• Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said he would delay a vote on background checks for weapons buyers while bipartisan talks progressed, but warned Republicans he would move ahead if no deal was reached.
• March for Our Lives, the student-led gun reform activist group set up in the wake of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Florida, is planning protest events in several US cities on 11 June.
• Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz confronted a British reporter and angrily left an interview after he was asked why school shootings like the one in Uvalde happen so often in the US.
• Before attacking the school, the gunman, named as Salvador Ramos, shot and wounded his grandmother at her home. Neighbors called police when she staggered outside and they saw she had been shot in the face.
• The gunman sent three online messages in the half-hour before the mass shooting, according to Texas governor Greg Abbott. The messages were sent via Facebook and “discovered after the terrible tragedy,” company spokesman Andy Stone said.
• The gunman had legally bought the rifle and a second one like it last week, just after his birthday, authorities said.

Thanks for following. My colleague Sam Levin will guide you through the next few hours.

Just days after the deadliest mass school shooting in Texas history, the National Rifle Association (NRA) – America’s leading gun lobbyist group – will meet a few hours away in Houston on Friday.

Ashton P Woods says they are not welcome in his home town.

“These people are coming into our community. The city of Houston needs to kick them out,” said Woods, an activist and founder of Black Lives Matter Houston. “We have to be just as tough about these things as they are.”

Woods is helping organize one of several protests planned just outside the George R Brown Convention Center, where NRA members will browse exhibits of firearms and gun paraphernalia and hear speeches from Republican leaders including Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas.

The goal of the Black Lives Matter protest, Woods said, is to “get loud” outside while powerful speakers take the podium inside. Woods said the issue of firearms was particularly important to the civil rights group that primarily tackles issues of police brutality in America.

“Whether it be death by suicide, death by cop, death by mass shooter, we need to control the access people have to deadly weapons,” Woods said. “These things are interconnected.”

Democratic Texas congressman Colin Allred was another on Wednesday to attack the NRA conference, and its prominent attendees.

“It’s a disgrace that these Republicans are choosing to attend the NRA convention, when they should be in their respective legislatures doing everything in their power to prevent the next attack like this,” he said in a video address from the Democratic party’s war room.

“When it comes to Ted Cruz, let’s just say he’s one of the biggest recipients of gun lobby spending and was the top recipient of campaign donations from so called gun rights backers in the 2018 election cycle.

“We know who Ted Cruz is serving, and it’s not Texans.”

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