Gemma Lopez, 10, one of the survivors of Uvalde’s The Robb Elementary School massacre will constantly carry the fear of hiding from a murderer with a rifle.
Gemma says that she heard the gunshots and the cries while she hid under her school desk. She lost her best friend in the bloodbath. She remembered that she went to the window to see what was going on and saw police officers and then she heard more of the gunshots.
The fourth-grader was in her schoolroom when the 18-year-old killer equipped with an AR15-style rifle initiated gunfire in the adjoining schoolroom next door.
Gemma recollected that a gunshot came through the wall, went in between Jalisa and Stacy and went past her arm and hit the bench. She and her fellow student were viewing a flick as it was supposed to be a entertaining day with the end of the school year but it soon turned out to be about survival.
Her educator turned off the lights and said the schoolchildren to hide. They were all quiet under the table and Gemma was crying just a little bit. Cops emptied her classroom and she just sprinted and never looked back.
She said that she was just frightened as she believed that the killer would be coming in their room and shoot everyone. Terribly Gemma would later get to know that her best friend, Eliahana Cruz Torres, 10, was amongst the 19 students and two teachers who were murdered.
19 CHILDREN. TWO TEACHERS. These are the faces of the shooting victims at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas….
Posted by Fox 11 Los Angeles on Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Gemma’s grandma was worried to get inside the school similar to many parents who first reached on sight. She just wanted to jump the boundary and see what was going on.
Eyewitness video from the day of the gunfire displays hysterical parents marching outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde pleading cops to go inside and defy the killer.
Department of Public Safety says it was roughly one hour from the time cops faced the shooter to the time he was murdered.
At a journalists meeting on Thursday afternoon, the Texas Department of Public Safety placed an updated timeline withdrawing some info that had earlier testified.
Journalists and others spoke to DPS officials on Wednesday, who said the school resource officer and shooter were engaged in fire. But on Thursday, Lt. Victor Escalon with DPS said there was no officer on the school premises and the killer walked into a wide open entrance on the west side of the school with no confrontation.
Cops finally arrive about 10 to 15 minutes after the shooter collided his grandma’s lorry nearby the school and fired on two people at a neighbouring funeral home.
They saw the killer go into a joint-classroom via two open doors. Escalon said that they don’t make access firstly for the reason that of the gunfire they’re getting but they have field marshal calling for extra resources. He further added that everybody that’s in the area, strategic teams, they need specialty gear. About an hour later, a border patrol strategic squad reached with protecting gear.
It’s uncertain how many kids who were gunshot early on may have survived had authorities gotten into the schoolroom quicker. And as the inquiry carry on, further heart-breaking news from the aftershock of this shooting is coming in.
The family of Irma Garcia, one of the two educators murdered, declared on Thursday that her spouse Joe suffered a deadly heart attack. Their family posted online that the sorrow of losing his high school beloved killed him. They left behind four kids and the youngest was just 13 years old.
EXTREMELY heartbreaking and come with deep sorrow to say that my Tia Irma’s husband Joe Garcia has passed away due to grief, i truly am at a loss for words for how we are all feeling, PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR FAMILY, God have mercy on us, this isn’t easy pic.twitter.com/GlUSOutRVV
— john martinez ❤️🔥 (@fuhknjo) May 26, 2022
In the meantime, the public carry on stopping by the school and giving their respects.
Several victims’ parents comprising the father of one 10-year-old girl, claiming cops should have done more. A number of parents were in dispute with cops that they need to go in and to do their duties. There are abundant reports of parents directly challenging law enforcement outside the school.
A mom said that she was manacled by Marshals but ultimately skipped a boundary and got her children off campus on her own. However, the spokesperson for U.S. Marshals rejected the statements.
