Thursday, March 28

Mass shooting survivor testifies at gun violence hearing: Live updates


US Rep. Jackie Speier reacts as she listens to testimony on Wednesday.
US Rep. Jackie Speier reacts as she listens to testimony on Wednesday. (Andrew Harnik/Pool/Getty Images)

A House committee held a hearing today on gun violence, featuring a survivor and others affected by the recent shootings at a Uvalde elementary school and a Buffalo supermarket.

If you’re just reading in now, here’s some of what was said at today’s hearing:

An 11-year-old Uvalde shooting survivor described how she covered herself in her friend’s blood to stay alive.

In a pre-recorded video, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo described to lawmakers how she survived the Robb Elementary School massacre by smearing her friend’s blood over herself and pretending to be dead.

Students tried to hide behind their teacher’s desk when the gunman entered the classroom, she said.

The gunman shot her teacher in the head, as well as some of her classmates, including her friend next to her, Cerrillo said.

When he went into the adjacent room, she got “a little blood and I put it all over me” and stayed quiet.

A Texas pediatrician described witnessing the “carnage in my hometown of Uvalde.”

Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician in Texas, described witnessing what he described as the “carnage in my hometown of Uvalde” during Wednesday’s hearing.

Guerrero — who said he’s lived in Uvalde his whole life and treated children in the community before the massacre — said that he “raced” to Uvalde Memorial Hospital on the day of the mass shooting. “I’ll never forget what I saw that day,” he said. As part of his testimony, he recounted a horrifying and disturbing scene:

“I had heard from some of the nurses that there were two dead children who had been moved to the surgical area of the hospital.” He went on to say, “what I did find was something no prayer will ever relieve: Two children, whose bodies had been so pulverized by bullets fired at them, decapitated, whose flesh had been ripped apart, that the only clue as to their identities was blood-spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them. Clinging for life and finding none.”

A mother of Buffalo shooting survivor told anti-reform lawmakers: Come clean my son’s wounds.

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Zeneta Everhart, the mother of Zaire Goodman, a victim of the Buffalo supermarket shooting who was treated and released from the hospital, called on lawmakers to act on gun violence during Wednesday’s hearing in emotional testimony.

“Lawmakers who continuously allow these mass shootings to continue by not passing stricter gun laws should be voted out,” she said. “To the lawmakers who feel that we do not need stricter gun laws let me paint a picture for you: My son Zaire has a hole in the right side of his neck, two on his back and another on his left leg caused by an exploding bullet from an AR-15. As I clean his wounds I can feel pieces of that bullet in his back. Shrapnel will be left inside of his body for the rest of his life. Now I want you to picture that exact scenario for one of your children.”

“If after hearing from me and the other people testifying here today does not move you to act on gun laws, I invite you to my home to help me clean Zaire’s wounds so that you may see up close the damage that has been caused to my son and to my community,” she said.

An armed guards or giving weapons to teachers will not stop mass shootings, education union president said.

National Education Association President Rebecca Pringle says she is “frustrated, heartbroken and angry” that school shootings are still happening 23 years after the Columbine High School massacre.

Pringle called for politicians to pass common-sense gun control legislation and not put the onus on educators.

“We cannot place enough armed guards at every school building in America to protect our babies. We cannot ask educators to carry weapons and wear body armor while teaching and nurturing our students, because by the time someone has shown up with a military weapons, it is already too late,” Pringle said.

The Buffalo police chief said the 18-year-old supermarket shooting suspect shouldn’t have been able to legally buy military-style weapon.

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Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph A. Gramaglia noted that the 18-year-old alleged White supremacist gunman who killed 13 people and wounded 10 others at a grocery store in a Black neighborhood of Buffalo was able to legally purchase a military-style weapon and body armor.

“This radicalized 18-year-old adult should have never been able to have access to the weapons he used to perpetrate this attack, and the laws need to be enacted to ensure it never happens again,” he said.

The mother of a Uvalde student killed in massacre outlined her demands for gun control policies.

Felix and Kimberly Rubio, the parents of Lexi Rubio, a 10-year-old killed in the Uvalde school massacre, testified during the hearing and Kimberly outlined a list of demands for specific gun policies she wants to see enacted.

“Today, we stand for Lexi, and, as her voice, we demand action,” Kimberly said.

Here’s her list of demands:

  • “We seek a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. We understand that for some reason, to some people, to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns, that guns are more important than children. So at this moment we ask for progress.
  • “We seek to raise the age to purchase these weapons from 18 to 21 years of age.”
  • “We seek red flag laws, stronger background checks.”
  • “We also want to repeal gun manufacturers’ liability immunity.”

The father of a Uvalde school shooting survivor says she’s “not the same little girl” anymore.

Miguel Cerrillo, the father of Miah Cerrillo, spoke through tears Wednesday and said the shooting had changed his daughter.

“Today I come because I could have lost my baby girl,” he said. “She is not the same little girl that I used to play with, and run around with and do everything, because she was daddy’s little girl,” he said.

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