The governor of Texas said fourteen children and one teacher were killed in a shooting at a Texas elementary school Tuesday. The gunman was also dead.
Governor Greg Abbott said the 18-year-old shooter opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. The town is about 136 kilometers west of San Antonio.
”He shot and killed, horrifically, incomprehensibly, 14 students and killed a teacher,” said the governor.
The gunman was a member of the community. He entered the school with a handgun and possibly a rifle, and opened fire, Abbott said. He said the shooter was likely killed by officers who answered the emergency at the school. And he added that the events were still being investigated.
It was the deadliest shooting at an elementary school since the attack in Sandy Hook, Connecticut in 2012. Twenty students and six adults were killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.
Pete Arredondo is the chief of police at the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District. He told reporters that the Texas gunman acted alone. He did not immediately say how many people, in addition to the dead, were hurt. But Arredondo said there were “several injuries.”
Earlier, Uvalde Memorial Hospital said 13 children were taken there. Another hospital reported a 66-year-old woman was in critical condition.
Uvalde is home to about 16,000 people. The town is about 120 kilometers from the border with Mexico. Robb Elementary School, where the shooting happened, has about 600 students in the second, third and fourth grades. The school population is 90 percent Hispanic. It is in a working-class neighborhood of small homes. The last day of school would have been this coming Thursday.
Many police surrounded the school Tuesday afternoon. Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation were coming and going from the building.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden heard about the school shooting on Air Force One and will continue to receive updates. Biden is returning from a five-day trip to Asia. Jean-Pierre said, “His prayers are with the families impacted by this awful event, and he will speak this evening when he arrives back at the White House.”
The shooting in Texas came less than two weeks after a gunman opened fire at a food store in Buffalo, New York. The shooting killed 10 Black shoppers and workers in what officials have described as a hate crime.
I’m Mario Ritter.
Hai Do wrote this report for VOA Learning English based on wire reports.
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Words in This Story
horrifically –adv. causing horror or shock
incomprehensibly –adv. in a way that is impossible to understand
awful –adj. extremely bad or unpleasant
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