“When I went to the backpacks, I shot my friend who was next to me and I thought she was going to go back into the classroom, so I I took some blood and smeared it all over my body”
An 11-year-old girl told US lawmakers Wednesday that smeared with the blood of her murdered classmate by his side to play dead during the shooting at a Texas school that convulsed the country.
Miah Cerrillo, A fourth-grader at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, recounted in terrifying detail when 19 of her classmates and two teachers were shot on May 24 by an 18-year-old.
He remembered that they had been watching a movie and that when the gunman burst in they took cover behind the teacher’s desk and their backpacks.
“He told my teacher ‘good night’ and then shot her in the head. And then I shot some of my classmates and the blackboard,” Miah said in a pre-recorded video intervention.
“When I went to the backpacks, I shot my friend who was next to me and I thought she was going to go back into the classroom, so I I took some blood and smeared it all over my body.
Miah recounted being completely silent, grabbing her dead teacher’s cell phone as soon as she could and dialing 911. “I told them we needed help, and to see the police in our classroom,” she said.
The police in Uvalde have been heavily criticized after learning that more than a dozen officers waited outside and they did nothing while the children lay dead or dying.
When asked what she wanted to happen after the attack, Miah replied: “Be safe”, and confirmed that he feared another gunman would attack his school. “I don’t want it to happen again” said.
“Pulverized by Bullets”
Miah, whose account of the massacre left some lawmakers in tears or in disbelief, has nightmares and is still recovering from bullet fragments in his back and dealing with trauma, said his father, Miguel Cerrillo. “It’s not the same girl I used to play with,” he told the committee.
His testimony comes as Congress faces mounting pressure to respond to mounting gun violence across the country, especially in the form of mass shootings (incidents with at least four dead or wounded, not including the shooter).
The massacres at Miah’s school and, 10 days earlier, at a supermarket in Buffalo, in New York state, they reignited urgent calls for politicians to take action.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee also heard from the mother of Lexi Rubio, a fourth grade student at Robb Elementary School who was murdered.
“We don’t want you to think of Lexi as a number. She was smart, compassionate and athletic,” Kimberly Rubio said by videoconference, wiping her tears with her husband Flix.
“She was quiet, shy, unless she had something to say. When she was right, as she often was, she stood her ground. She was firm, direct, with an unwavering voice. So today we stand up for Lexi and like her voice, we demand action.” “.
Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician who treated several victims in Uvalde, recounted that saw “two boys whose bodies had been pulverized by bullets, beheaded, whose flesh had been torn.
“Chosen to protect us”
A group of Democratic and Republican senators is preparing a regulation that, although limited, could become the first attempt to reform gun regulation in decades.
The package would increase funding for mental health care and school safety, slightly expand background checks on gun buyers, and incentivize states to institute so-called “red flag laws,” which allow confiscate weapons from persons considered a threat.
However, it does not include an assault weapons ban or universal background checks, so it will not meet the president’s expectations. Joe Biden, progressive Democrats and activists against gun violence.
Even if an agreement is reached, the initiative will have to face a divided Senate equally between Democrats and Republicans and have the support of at least 10 Republicans, who are reluctant to have significant regulatory reform.
On the other hand, the Democrats who control the Lower House approved this Wednesday a much broader package of proposals, which includes increasing the purchase age of semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21 years.
Although those proposals do not have the 60 votes they would need to advance in the Senate, the Democratic leadership wants to do something after the series of recent mass shootings.
Garnell Whitfield Jr, the son of 86-year-old Buffalo massacre victim Ruth Whitfield, testified Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee about white supremacist violence.
“You expect us to keep forgiving and forgetting over and over again? And what are you doing? They were chosen to protect us and our way of life,” signal.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism