Fourteen students and a teacher are dead after a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, according to Gov. Greg Abbott.
The gunman entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun and possibly a rifle around noon, Abbott said. “He shot and killed, incomprehensibly, 14 students and killed a teacher,” Abbott said at a press conference, adding that the gunman is dead and believed to have been killed by officers responding to the school.
Abbott also reported that the gunman shot his grandmother at the school.
The shooter has been identified as 18-year-old Salvador Romas by officials. They have not revealed a motive for the shooting, but said the shooter was a resident of the community.
Abbott called the shooting a “horrific tragedy” stating that it cannot be tolerated in his home state of Texas. “There is swift action being taken by local law enforcement,” he told reporters.
This is the second deadliest shooting at a U.S. grade school since the shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, Connecticut, almost a decade ago, where 28 people were killed, including 21 six- and seven-year-old first graders. The Uvalde shooting is the nation’s deadliest school shooting since 2018, when 17 people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the Intelligencer reported.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden has been briefed on the school shooting on Air Force One as he returns from a five-day trip to Asia and would continue to receive updates. Jean-Pierre said Biden will deliver remarks Tuesday evening at the White House.
The shooting in Texas came less than two weeks after a white gunman opened fire at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, while live streaming the attack and killing 10 Black shoppers and workers.
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